arthur McIvor | University of Strathclyde (original) (raw)

Papers by arthur McIvor

This chapter looks at occupational health in Scotlan

Routledge eBooks, Jun 21, 2023

University of British Columbia Press eBooks, Apr 1, 2015

This chapter discusses the impact of asbestos-related disease in Britain

Berghahn eBooks, Sep 1, 2015

This chapter discusses the workers’ and employers’ knowledge of the asbestos hazard in clydeside.

20 & 21: Revue d'histoire, Sep 2, 2019

One of the most common definitions of health is that adopted by the World Health Organisation (WH... more One of the most common definitions of health is that adopted by the World Health Organisation (WHO): ‘Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.’1 Elsewhere I have commented on some of the ways that the long drawn-out process of deindustrialisation in the UK impacted on the body and affected health.2 In this article I take this discussion further by drilling down to focus on and examine in more depth one particular local region – the Clydeside area centred on Glasgow, Scotland’s largest city. It was an area dominated by docks, textile manufacture, chemicals, iron and steel works, engineering, shipbuilding, and coal mining with a long history of ill-health and deprivation linked to levels of poverty, overcrowding and environmental pollution. The process of plant, shipyard, steel works and pit closures associated with deindustrialisation undoubtedly added a further dimension to what has become known as the unhealthy ‘Glasgow effect’.3 This essay explores these connections, investigating how and why deindustrialisation affected morbidity and mortality in the Clydeside region, as well as ‘social well-being’ (WHO). This conversation has tended to date to focus largely around statistical data, especially the epidemiological evidence.4 The methodology deployed here is to combine a quantitative approach with a qualitative one, deploying personal oral testimonies to explore the embodied meaning of job loss for this generation of post-war manual workers, 1945-2000.

Moving the Social, 1991

This short article reviews the recent evolution of the discipline of labour history in England fr... more This short article reviews the recent evolution of the discipline of labour history in England from institutional history towards an expanded agenda as the social history of the working class - organised and unorganised. The key role of individual scholars and organisations in this professionalisation is noted and the main labour history research libraries and archives identified. The expansion and historiography of new areas of research - women, the unskilled, relations between the working class and labour politics, the milieux and politics of the workplace, labour management and the convergence of business and labour history - are discussed, together with the weaknesses in the discipline and the erosion in funding for labour history which has characterised the 1980s.

Social history of medicine, Jun 14, 2012

In 1951, tuberculosis was added to the statutory list of prescribed occupational diseases in the ... more In 1951, tuberculosis was added to the statutory list of prescribed occupational diseases in the UK, giving some workers the right to financial compensation. This article explores the long campaign to define TB as an illness linked to employment, investigating an area neglected in the historiography, whilst contributing to our understanding of the role of trade unions in relation to public health. The evidence examined here suggests a complex and changing picture in which a broadly proactive and dynamic union policy implicated the workplace in the TB epidemic and pressed for preventative measures and compensation. Whilst limited in effectiveness before 1939, this campaign was successful in the 1940s as the medical evidence became clearer, debate narrowed to focus on health workers, the capacity of the trade union movement to influence policy making developed and the Trades Union Congress learnt to strategically marshal medical evidence and engage more effectively with the epidemiology.

John Donald eBooks, 1992

This collection of essays focuses upon the life and times of Harry McShane, one of the last of th... more This collection of essays focuses upon the life and times of Harry McShane, one of the last of the Red Clydesiders - a lifelong labour activist and Marxist who died in April 1988. The book incorporates a short biographical introduction, some reminiscences by associates of Harry and samples of his political writing, dealing with the acute housing crisis in late 1940s Glasgow.

Presses universitaires du Septentrion eBooks, 2014

Quand les corps parlent : faire de l'histoire orale pour étudier la santé et l'invalidité au trav... more Quand les corps parlent : faire de l'histoire orale pour étudier la santé et l'invalidité au travail dans les houillères britanniques au vingtième siècle' in Judith Rainhorn (ed.

Bios, Oct 6, 2020

This article is an attempt to comprehend deindustrialisation and the impact of plant downsizing a... more This article is an attempt to comprehend deindustrialisation and the impact of plant downsizing and closures in Scotland since the 1970s through listening to the voices of workers and reflecting on their ways of telling, whilst making some observations on how an oral history methodology can add to our understanding. It draws upon a rich bounty of oral history projects and collections undertaken in Scotland over recent decades. The lush description and often intense articulated emotion help us as academic “outsidersˮ to better understand how lives were profoundly affected by plant closures, getting us beyond statistical body counts and overly sentimentalised and nostalgic representations of industrial work to more nuanced understandings of the meanings and impacts of job loss. In recalling their lived experience of plant run-downs and closures, narrators are informing and interpreting; projecting a sense of self in the process and drawing meaning from their working lives. My argument here is that we need to listen attentively and learn from those who bore witness and try to make sense of these diverse, different and sometimes contradictory stories. We should take cognisance of silences and transgressing voices as well as dominant, hegemonic narratives if we are to deepen the conversation and understand the complex but profound impacts that deindustrialisation had on traditional working-class communities in Scotland, as well as elsewhere.

This chapter looks at trade unions in scottish societ

Scottish affairs, Aug 1, 2000

Labour History, 2005

The exceptionalism of Australian industrial relations has long been asserted. In particular, the ... more The exceptionalism of Australian industrial relations has long been asserted. In particular, the Australian system of industrial arbitration has been argued to contrast markedly with other countries, such as Britain, which developed a more 'voluntarist' model of industrial regulation. However this distinction relies upon limited historical research of workplace-level developments. In this paper, we focus on a comparative analysis of employer practice in British and Australian workplaces during the first half of the twentieth century. While we find some differences in the nature and extent of management control between the British and Australian experience, what is more striking are the strong similarities in employer practice in work organisation, employment and industrial relations. While economic and institutional factors explain differences in employer practice, fundamental similarities appear to relate to the close economic and social linkages between British and Australian business.

Journal of Contemporary History, Oct 1, 1988

It has been argued elsewhere, on a number of occasions, that in stark contrast to the vast amount... more It has been argued elsewhere, on a number of occasions, that in stark contrast to the vast amount of research recently undertaken on labour history, the study of employers’ organizations, capitalist pressure groups and labour management strategies remains grossly neglected, a theme without literature. This paper addresses one area where perhaps historians have been particularly remiss, namely how employers responded and organized to neutralize the growing power of labour and the penetration of socialist ideas and communist influence amongst the working class in the inter-war years. Focus is placed here on the genesis, organization, financial backing, functions, orientation and strategies of one association, the Economic League (EL). The League was only one of a plethora of anti-socialist organizations in existence in the 1920s and 1930s. However, it will be argued that this organization had special significance because of its role as a systematic monitoring and labour blacklisting agency. It was also one of the most powerful, most active and most durable of anti-labour employers’ combinations in the twentieth century,

The Economic History Review, Nov 1, 1996