The British Trade Unions and Europe

Abstract

The British political establishment, an ever sceptical monitor of post-war European developments – to this very day – stuck firmly with its Trans-Atlantic dialogue, loath to support the new social and economic dialogue growing in the heart of Europe. This has also been the case with British trade unions, except for a significant period, running from a speech by the European Commission President, Jacques Delors, to the TUC Congress in 1988 to the 2007 TUC Congress when the TUC voted to call for a referendum on the draft European Constitutional Treaty – a strongly sceptical signal which reflects a growing euroscepticism and reawakens old concerns on the left about “the bosses’ Europe” and the will to preserve British-style “free collective bargaining”, despite the battering that had received from Mrs Thatcher through anti-trade union laws since 1979. However, if out of the wreckage of the financial economy the United Kingdom is to move more in the direction of a genuine social market economy with a strong welfare state, public services and widespread collective bargaining, then the European route offers the most promise. The best way forward for British trade unions is to carry on the fight for a Social Europe.