Murray, Gregor (1985) Trade unions and incomes policies : British unions and the social contract in the 1970s. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

This is an investigation of the trade union role in the Social Contract
incomes policies in Britain during the 1970s. In the context of the general
political economy of the period, the study looks at the development in the
early 1970s of an accord between the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and the
Labour Party known as the Social Contract, examines the trade union
participation in the series of voluntary incomes policies that followed the
election of the Labour Government in 1974, and charts the development or
opposition to such participation oulminating in the collapse of the policy
in the winter of 1978-1979 and the subsequent defeat of the Labour
Government in the 1979 general election. More specifically, the study
focuses on the experience of six individual unions within the context of TUC
policy-making: the articulations between their approaches to incomes policy
and their collective bargaining policies, the anatomy of their responses and
policies towards the various phases of the Social Contract, the mobilization
of consent and/or opposition to TUe and Government policy in each union, and
the limits placed on relative union leadership discretion to participate in
TUC policy-making by the political and industrial processes and
organizational structure of each union.
The research has involved a variety of sources and methods. First,
there has been an attempt to draw on and link the diverse areas of the
industrial relations literature which are concerned with the relationship
between trade Unions and incomes policies. These include the separate
literatures on incomes policy, on the link between trade unions and the
Labour Party and Labour governments, on trade union government and the
sociology of trade union organizations, and on the debate over 'corporatist'
types of arrangements between trade unions and the state. Secondly, the
research has involved the use of a wide range of primary and secondary trade
union and political documentary sources on this period of history through
the 1970s. Finally, the detailed case studies of the six sample unions have
involved both primary documentary materials and extensive interviewing.
Thus, the materials collected for the study constitute a unique source on
different approaches to the 1970s pay policies, on their industrial impact
and the political processes that they engendered within individual unions,
and on the broader relations between British trade unions and the state
during this period.
The theoretical contribution of the study is primarily exploratory in
nature. It identifies the constraints to which national union leaderships
are· subject when they engage or attempt to engage in macro-economic and
political exchanges with the state. Such constraints are explored in an
examination of the upwards and downwards mediations that occur within trade
unions as illustrated by the variations within and between trade unions in
the mobilization of consent and opposition to the Social Contract incomes
policies. This analysis informs debates about the limits and/or viability
of other corporatist or 'Social Contract' types of arrangements. It also
investigates the organizational implications of voluntary incomes policies
and compares the internal political processes and industrial practices of
British trade unions: at the level of the TUC as a whole, within individual
affiliates and, in partiCUlar, in the articulations between TUC and
individual union policy-making and bargaining behaviour.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Labor unions -- Great Britain -- History -- 20th century, Social contract, Wage-price policy -- Great Britain -- History -- 20th century, Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1964-1979
Official Date:	November 1985
Dates:	Date Event November 1985 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	School of Industrial and Business Studies
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Winchester, David ; Clegg, Hugh Armstrong
Sponsors:	Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU)
Extent:	xiii, 706 leaves
Language:	eng

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