Welfare Reform on the Web (July 2008): Minimum Wage - UK

A fair day's wage for a fair day's work? Sweated labour and the origins of minimum wage legislation in Britain

S. Blackburn

Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007

This book is in three parts. The first part examines the history of sweated labour in Britain from 1843-1890. The second looks at anti-sweating campaigns and the turning point of 1906 when the Legal Minimum Wage was introduced. Part three looks at the minimum wage in practice, from the test case of the 1910 Cradley Heath Dispute to the current day.