'Secret Lists and Sanctions': The Blacklisting of the John Lewis Partnership and the Politics of Pay in 1970s Britain.

Abstract

In 1977, the John Lewis Partnership (JLP) was blacklisted for breaching the Labour government's pay controls under the Social Contract. As the Callaghan administration struggled to establish economic credibility, extending its reach into the private sector emerged as a political priority. JLP became a test case of government resolve months before the Ford strike of autumn 1978 that ushered in the Winter of Discontent. This article uses JLP records to create a more nuanced picture of the tensions, contestations, and vacillations of pay policy in the late 1970s. By doing so, gaps between policy conception and implementation emerge and intersect; both the business and the government faced constraints in implementing policy, despite powerful beliefs about the integrity of their actions. The article is not primarily a case study, however, and aims to contribute to broader debates. The constitutional significance, rather than the commercial impact, of government sanctions became a keynote of critique of JLP's blacklisting, suggesting that contemporaries recognized this was a confrontation of the political moment between the state and the private sector. By looking from a business's perspective, we also gain insight into how organizations approached, negotiated with, and responded to the government. Recovering the JLP blacklisting episode further shows how business archives offer great promise as resources for political history.