In the early months of 1811, workers in Nottingham began to break up newly installed equipment in textile plants, which had led to job losses, writes Mark Hennessy
Over the next few years, hundreds of attacks took place. Large numbers of men were killed or executed after the House of Commons made such attacks liable to the capital charge.
Frightened of unemployment, and treated badly, the workers have become known to history as the Luddites. In the end, the Industrial Revolution continued unchecked.
Today, some elements of the Irish trade union movement, in public at least, are displaying some worrying symptoms of Luddism. For years, Fianna Fáil under Bertie Ahern has made its name by steering the Good Ship Social Partnership through waters deep and shallow. In broad terms, the journey has been a good one. The involvement of unions, businesses and other groups has brought benefits to society as a whole.
However, it has come at a price. Union and business leaders today frequently sound as if they are under the impression that somebody elected them to their roles.
Now, Fianna Fáil may be set to pay its share of the bargain, as union leaders, stung by mounting job losses, adopt more "bolshie" positions. So far, the Government cannot be accused of inaction, even if union charges that the plans have not been fully thought through are not without validity.
Seamus Brennan wants to create three airport authorities, rather than just one, and wants 25 per cent of Dublin bus routes operated by private operators. Regardless of the rights and wrongs of the issue, the response from the unions in both companies has bordered on the Luddite, as illustrated by two senseless industrial actions.
Frankly, no one knows whether Brennan's Aer Rianta plan will work or not - though at first glance it seems to be worth trying, and capable of being reversed if it does not. Still, Brennan needs to do much better.
Far too little detail has been given out about his plan. Until it is, the fears of workers are not unjustified, even though obstructionism is. So far, local business interests in Cork seem confident that they can make their airport work, benefiting from the large population in its hinterland.
Shannon, however, seems more doubtful about its future, though this is not helped by the region's obsession with transatlantic flights.
Oddly, it might have been easier for Brennan to win Aer Rianta workers' support if he had promised privatisation, rather than just independence.
Union leaders, no doubt, will have looked carefully at the recent decision by the Eircom owners, Valentia, to pay out €512 million to shareholders. Eircom workers, who own 30 per cent of the company through the Employee Share Ownership Trust, will reap €230 million from the deal. Not a bad return. Raise your glasses, Eircom workers, to union chief, Con Scanlan. While the Government is taking a stiffer line on the need for change in the public service, it has a lot of ground to make up. Unfortunately, it conceded all of it itself.
For years, public sector workers looked on enviously as they saw the private sector steam ahead in the best days of the Celtic Tiger. Seeking their share of the goodies, they won a €1.2 billion benchmarking deal.
On Friday, the Economic and Social Research Institute became the latest to warn that the package will have a "significant negative impact" on the Exchequer's finances in the years ahead. Just one quarter of the bill has been paid already, though the remaining 75 per cent is to be paid once productivity gains and work practice changes are implemented through the public service.
Alas, from the taxpayers' point of view, estimating the productivity of many people in the public service is a difficult exercise, because one is dealing with intangible services.
The concept of paying for extra productivity is now a dubious one, even if it was once deemed mandatory. Fewer and fewer private sector workers get bonuses from using new equipment.
Furthermore, it has to be said, even at the price of annoying some civil servants, that the productivity of some in the public service is hard to measure because there is so little of it.
Private sector workers, few of whom got to enjoy the trough in the way that public servants thought they had, will now have grounds to gripe as their very employment becomes threatened. Clearly, Fine Gael, which was never much of a fan of social partnership in the first place and a reluctant operator of it when it was in power during the Rainbow Coalition, believes that there is political gold to be mined.
Three times this week, Fine Gael has come out with bullish statements, calling for action to be taken to recoup the €1.2 million losses suffered by CIÉ from yesterday's "No Fares Day". "Time and time again it is the customer that ends up shelling out for the posturing of protected workers in cossetted sectors of the economy," harrumphed Fine Gael's Enda Kenny.
Strong stuff. And it is evidence - not conclusive, but evidence nevertheless - that Fine Gael is finally beginning to hone its message and to get its act in order. For months, Fine Gael TD Gay Mitchell has said endlessly that the party has to be ruthless about its need to get back to having 30 per cent of the vote and to get back into power.
For the first time, however, Fine Gael is showing signs that it is now prepared deliberately to lose 70 per cent of the electorate to get its targeted 30 per cent. The strategy is not without risk, but, at least, it is a strategy.