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Last updated:05 May 2015

Municipal workers

A municipal worker works for a local authority - a town, city or county council. The 'municipal' concept has traditionally covered a very wide array of occupations.  A trawl through the 1935 volume of the journal of the General and Municipal Workers Union brings up the following shortlist:

Page from the GMWU journal for December 1935

GMWU Journal, Dec 1935

Gasworkers
[Mental] hospital workers
Chemical industry workers
Brewery workers
Electricity supply workers
Iron and steel industry workers
Car park attendants
Dockers
Hotel workers
Quarrymen
Co-operative Wholesale Society factory workers

To find out more about the history of general unions, which sought to organise and represent unskilled and semi-skilled workers, click here


Resources about municipal workers in the library collection

George Bernard Shaw, The commonsense of municipal trading, 2nd ed (1912) - Shelfmark: H26

R B Suthers, Mind your own business: the case for municipal management (1905) - Shelfmark: A63

George Haw, Today's work: municipal government the hope of democracy (1901) - Shelfmark: A27

Keir Hardie, The common good: an essay in municipal government (no date) - Shelfmark: AG Independent Labour Party Box 11

Fabian Society, Municipal hospitals (1900) - Shelfmark: AG Fabian Tracts

Arthur Greenwood, The brewers repentant (ca. 1919) - Shelfmark: J19/6

C Ashmore Baker, Public versus private electricity supply, Fabian Tract 173 (1913) - Shelfmark: J18/6

Iron and Steel Trades Confederation, What is wrong with the British iron and steel industry?: a statement of policy involving private enterprise, the workers and the nation (1931) - Shelfmark: J19/21

Raphael Samuel (ed.), Miners, quarrymen and saltworkers (1977) - Shelfmark: J30

J Roose Williams, Quarryman's champion: the life and activities of William John Parry of Coetmor  (1978) - Shelfmark: E01