The Party and the Trade Unions

Abstract

This chapter discusses that the Conservative Party retained a profound suspicion of organized labour, both as a political and as an economic force, throughout the century. It explains that the process begins with the challenge that the Taff Vale judgment posed to the special immunities which had been granted to trade-union funds in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. The chapter discusses that, since 1979, the trade unions have been stripped of their mystique and prestige and lost many of their powers, and argues that they still have a major role to play in public life which the party cannot entirely ignore. The chapter also deals with the problems shown during the attempts to establish an effective structure for Conservative trade unionists and in appealing to the traditional ‘cloth-cap’ industrial working man.