The Unions, Unemployment and Industrial Relations

Abstract

During the 1970s, it seemed that union power had grown to the point where union leaders were amongst the most influential political figures in the country. Indeed, in opinion polls, leaders of the largest unions ranked alongside the Prime Minister and members of the Cabinet in terms of power and influence. Union leaders were regularly observed to-ing and fro-ing from Number Ten in their attempts to negotiate industrial peace over beer and sandwiches. The Governments of the 1970s led by Wilson, Heath and Callaghan all lost public support to some extent because they did not appear to be able to cope with the unions. Some blamed Heath’s electoral defeat in 1974 on his Government’s failure to handle the miners’ strike and the ‘Winter of Discontent’ seemed to inflict similar damage on the Callaghan Government in 1979. Yet, within a few years, the situation changed dramatically, with the unions suffering an enormous loss of power. In 1983, a popular newspaper described the trade unions ‘Like columns of a defeated army struggling to a prisoner of war camp … Not long ago their battalions looked to be invincible.’ What reasons, then, lay behind the unions’ fall from power?