Who Governs Britain: Trade Unions, the Conservative Party and the Failure of the Industrial Relations Act 1971

(Hardback)

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Providing fresh insights from the archival record, Who governs Britain revisits the 1970-74 Conservative government to explain why the Party tried and failed to reform the system of industrial relations. Designed to tackle Britains strike problem and perceived disorder in collective bargaining, the Industrial Relations Act 1971 established a formal legal framework to counteract trade union power. As the state attempted to disengage from and depoliticise collective bargaining practices, trade union leaders and employers were instructed to discipline industry. In just three-and-a-half years, the Act contributed to a crisis of the British state as industrial unrest engulfed industry and risked undermining the rule of law. Warner explores the power dynamics, strategic errors and industrial battles that destroyed this attempt to tame trade unions and ultimately brought down a government, and that shape Conservative attitudes towards trade unions to this day.

Reviews

With a Conservative government proposing yet more legislation to curb trade unions and workers right to strike, Sam Warners superb study of the Heath Governments 1971 Industrial Relations Act is particularly timely. Using a wealth of archival and primary sources, he eloquently provides a fascinating and well-researched case study of how Heaths legislative attempt to promote more moderate and responsible trade unionism, and thus fewer strikes, had precisely the opposite effect, by serving to mobilise many trade unions against the government and radicalise hitherto moderate union members. Warners rigorous study highlights the supreme irony of the 1971 Act, namely that a measure which aimed to de-politicise industrial relations and trade unionism actually had precisely opposite effect; a wonderful example of a major policy failure from which Margaret Thatchers governments learned vital lessons.
Pete Dorey, Professor of British Politics, Cardiff University

Author Bio

Sam Warner is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Politics at the University of Manchester