The Bakers Union

While it was no longer illegal to form unions following the repeal of the combination acts in 1824, workers were still prohibited from striking or picketing to raise wages, shorten hours or restrict apprentice numbers. Penalties ranged from fines to transportation or in extreme cases execution. Bakers in Enniskillen who moved to organise themselves in 1834 were threatened with transportation. Whilst we do not know if they successfully organised. We do know that a Bakers Union branch was established in Enniskillen by 1872.

Before 1890, Belfast Operative Bakers struck to reduce working hours from “about 90” to “66” Under the bank holidays act of 1871, paid holidays were limited to Easter Monday, Whit Monday, The First Monday in August and 26 December if it was a weekday. Campaigns to abolish night work failed and although Sunday work was made illegal in 1838, it continued to be carried out. Campaigns for shorter hours and improved pay were more successful

As late as 1890 we find bakers in Armagh working 78-hour weeks, Derry 84 hours and Dundalk 96 to 102 hours. Small wonder the mortality rate for bakers in 1860 was 37.

The effects of the 1946 Bread Strike were felt in the county when local bread servers withdrew their labour from Monday 25th November 1946. The United Co-operative Bakery Society’s operatives (UCBS) in Enniskillen had acted on the Sunday and the main Bakery in Enniskillen, Whaley’s although still operating had limited supplies of flour. A report in the local newspaper was predicting that all the bakeries would close within a few days unless the strike was settled.

The United Co-operative Baking Society Ltd originated in Scotland and tendered for the erection of a new bakery in Enniskillen in July 1920. The bakery was eventually opened on Easter Monday 1922. It had been built by a local building contractor, Henry Pierce and Sons, the architect being James Donnelly. The Fermanagh Times in December 1920 informed its readers that the successful bid to erect the bakery was £10,735 (Equivalent to £601,302.68 July 2024).

Joseph Henderson worked in the Co-op Bakery and was Branch Secretary of the Operative Bakers Union. He was allocated a house in the newly built Kelly’s Cottages in 1932 (Which had been built because of the agitation of Labour activists, John Jones and William Kelly) at least partly because as a baker he would have been more likely to have been able to afford the rent of the new houses.