1st Edition

The Fifth Estate Britain's Unions in the Seventies

By Robert Taylor Copyright 1978
    386 Pages
    by Routledge

    386 Pages
    by Routledge

    First published in 1978. Britain’s unions were blamed by many people for the country’s post-war economic decline. Portrayed as greedy wreckers who wanted to run the country, they had become scapegoats for the state of the nation. This anatomy of Britain’s diverse and complex trade union movement sets out to question that widespread opinion.

    The main argument advanced in the study is that unions in Britain were too weak, not too strong. From the 1940s until the 1970s, Robert Taylor believes, they had failed to achieve the constructive influence over British society that union movements elsewhere in western Europe had managed to gain. Considering the major and medium-sized unions separately, he examines the sudden and rapid growth of unionisation in Britain, the structure of the unions, their effectiveness, the influence they had, their international record, and the nature of trade union democracy.

    Acknowledgements;  Preface;  Abbreviations;  Part One: Profile of the Movement;  1. The Growth of the Unions  2. The TUC – Carthorse of Great Russell Street  3. The Politics of the Unions  4. The Influence of the Unions  5. How Democratic are the Unions?  6. The Challenge from Below  7. Workers of the World Unite  8. How Effective are the Unions?;  Part Two: Varieties of Unionism;  9. One Industrial Union  10. All Men are Brethren  11. The Loyal Brothers  12. The New Public Sector Giants  13. The Miners’ Revival  14. White-collar Rivals  15. The Hammer of the Left  16. The Weaker Brethren  17. Industrial Unions on the Defensive  18. Public Service Malaise  19. The Fleet Street Follies  20. All Kinds of Everything;  Select Bibliography;  Postscript: The Significance of Grunwick; Appendix: The Wage Round: Prescription for Chaos?;  Index

    Biography

    Robert Taylor