Industrial Relations in Local Government

Abstract

The popular image of industrial relations in local government is one in which negotiations consist of genteel tête‐à‐têtes over coffee and (if the meetings spill over into the afternoon) tea. Though there is little in the activities of 1984 to justify this conception the traditions which give rise to it were real enough. The main white collar union, NALGO, had its origins in a nineteenth century campaign by senior officers, led inevitably by a Town Clerk, to press for a local authority pension scheme. The union was officially launched in July 1905 and saw itself as an association of professionals rather than a union of employees. Indeed it was not until 65 years after its launch that NALGO sanctioned its first‐ever strike when 18 of its 400,000 members took industrial action in Leeds.