In 1972, after a national strike, building workers achieved the largest single pay increase ever negotiated in the building industry: an immediate pay increase of £6 per week for craftsmen and £5 per week for labourers. This was on a previous national minimum rate of just £20 for a skilled worker and £17 for a labourer.   It was a magnificent victory for the workers and their trade unions.

At the time working conditions on building sites were second only to coal mines for fatalities and serious injuries.  Facilities like toilets, washbasins, lockers and so on were few and far between.  Trade union organisation was hard because of the nature of the industry, where workers moved from one site to another, and organising to defend wages and working conditions had to start all over again with a new group of people.  To make it even harder, the employers funded a secret organisation, the Economic League, to maintain a blacklist and keep active trade unionists off the sites.

Organisation was also made harder by a payment system called ‘the lump’.  The workers were not seen as employees of the building firm.  Instead they were regarded as ‘self-employed’ and were paid a lump sum of money for the work they did each day or week, out of which they had to pay their tax and national insurance.   They had various allowances for travel, clothes, lodgings, tools etc that were signed off by the employer, and paid income tax on a much smaller amount than a directly employed worker.

What the lump meant was that workers were trading off working conditions and health and safety on sites for higher pay.  Many employers refused to take on direct labour.  They knew many would be trade unionists ready to fight collectively for better pay and conditions, which had to be negotiated afresh on each site, and that the ‘lumpers’ would dilute the unions’ strength.