Trade unionists will this week mark the anniversary of the 1919 Belfast engineers’ strike, which labour historian Padraig Yeates says laid the basis for the 39-hour week.

An event at ICTU’s Belfast office will acknowledge the dispute, which involved 40,000 workers and saw another 20,000 laid off. It will also launch the ‘centenaries and citizenship’ project, an initiative of the Fellowship of Messines Association.

Padraig says the strike was the start of a wave of industrial unrest across the United Kingdom and Ireland, which saw the length of the working week reduced by an average of 6.5 hours a week. “This was the largest cut ever achieved and it laid the basis for our current 39-hour week,” he said.

Late last year, Fórsa again placed the spotlight on working time when the union called for a move towards a four-day week to reflect advances in technology and work organisation.

Padraig says the 1919 strike has been largely ignored in this ‘decade of centenaries.’ “It may lack the drama and controversy that surrounds its more famous historical counterparts, but arguably it has had a far greater and more beneficial impact on all our lives,” he said.