The Trade Union Response to the Marshall Plan

Abstract

Trade union support for the Marshall Plan was a prerequisite for its success as an aid programme, both in terms of its economic and its political impact. Furthermore, such support needed to be ensured at both domestic and international levels. However, this support was not a foregone conclusion given the growing politicization of the Marshall Plan, and the fact that the trade union national centres of the West were tied to those of the East in the international trade union movement. In Britain, the trade union leadership supported the government by controlling organized labour’s response to the Marshall Plan and played a vital part in the mobilization of labour to support the Marshall Plan at the international level through its prominent position in the international trade union movement. While doing this, it relied on its close links with Ernest Bevin and the Foreign Office. In turn, the trade union leadership used the Marshall Plan to marginalize and oppose those on the far left of the union movement, and to remove itself from international cooperation with the communist unions. This chapter starts by examining the role of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in the international trade union movement at this time, and the links between the TUC and the Foreign Office. It then describes the trade union response to the Marshall Plan both in Britain and at the international level.