:''This is about the Maritime Board in the United Kingdom. For the Board in the Philippines, see
National Seamen Board.''
The National Maritime Board (NMB) was a bilateral board governing wages and working practices in the British shipping industry.
It was founded in November 1917 against a backdrop of strike action amongst seafarers and was originally intended as a purely wartime measure to facilitate wage negotiations in a period of rapid inflation. It built upon the union-employer relationship that had emerged during the war years and brought together representatives of the
Shipping Federation, the
National Union of Seamen
The National Union of Seamen (NUS) was the principal trade union of merchant seafarers in the United Kingdom from the late 1880s to 1990. In 1990, the union amalgamated with the National Union of Railwaymen to form the National Union of Rail, ...
and the
National Union of Ship's Stewards, as well as some smaller unions in the industry, but allowing the
British Seafarers' Union
The British Seafarers' Union (BSU) was a trade union which organised sailors and Fireman (steam engine), firemen in the British ports of Southampton and Glasgow between 1911/1912 and 1922. Although of considerable local importance, the organis ...
only local representation. In 1919 the board was re-established as a permanent body and set about establishing national wage rates for all grades, the first time such rates had been enforced.
Aylmer Vallance
Gerald Aylmer Vallance (4 July 1892 – 24 November 1955), born George Alexander Gerald Vallance, was a Scottish newspaper editor.
Career
Born in Partick, Vallance studied at Fettes College in Edinburgh and Balliol College, Oxford, before serv ...
was appointed as the board's General Secretary.
[Geoffrey Cox, "The editor who made love - and great news", ''British Journalism Review'' 1996 7: 16]
In the 1920s, the board imposed a series of wage reductions with the support of the National Union of Seamen. The Ship's Stewards Union opposed the first of these reductions in 1921, and its members were locked out. At this time, the board also became embroiled in controversies over the policy of Joint Control introduced by the NUS and Shipping Federation. This arrangement aimed to ensure that seafarers could only gain employment if in possession of a form endorsed by both the union and the employers' organisation. It was allegedly widely used to force out of employment members of rival unions, communists, and other 'agitators'.
Later history is unclear: the University of Warwick's Modern Records Centre states that "the records of the Board currently held
..end in 1985
..and it is not known how the organisation continued to operate after this time".
References
{{Reflist
External links
Catalogue of the NMB archives held at the
Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick
The Modern Records Centre (MRC) is the specialist archive service of the University of Warwick in Coventry, England, located adjacent to the Central Campus Library. It was established in October 1973 and holds the world's largest archive collect ...
Water transport in the United Kingdom
1917 establishments in the United Kingdom
Shipping in the United Kingdom