Trouble on the Trams

The fight for union rights.

In the early twentieth century, workers could be sacked by their employer with impunity simply because they had joined a trade union.

Such was the situation for those who worked on Bristol’s trams. In Trouble on the Trams, Rob Whitfield recounts how the drivers and conductors fought back when nearly one hundred of their number were dismissed in 1901.

Using contemporary newspaper reports and the company’s own records, he details this dispute and those that were to follow subsequently, until union recognition was finally achieved over three decades later.