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M U T UA L M I ST RU ST
This disruption of normal working practice was made more difficult by
the mutual suspicion of employers and workers and the suspicion that
the Government were not satisfied to have agreement in industry: they
required agreement on working practices which maximised production.
There were some employers and some politicians who believed that the
workers were potentially revolutionary and that they should therefore be
dealt with severely.There were some employers who wanted to use the war
to break the power of the unions. Most workers believed that employers
wanted to break the unions and that the employers were making large
profits out of the war which were not being shared through increased
wages.They also resented the idea,which at one stage was given national
publicity by Lloyd George, the Minister for Munitions, that shipyard
workers were not working
hard enough and that most
of themwere usually drunk.
A riveter at work on a Standard merchant ship, ‘War
Rider’, which was begun in 1917 at John Brown & Co’s yard.
materials of war 33