ABSTRACT
The Trade Union Confederations style and ethos is dictated by the big general manual unions, but new giants have arisen who will change the balance of influence in the trade union movement in the future. The most prominent of them is the National and Local Government Officers’ Association (NALGO). This chapter focuses on democracy in the unions, NALGO enjoys a substantially higher participation than others in its Executive Council elections. The key NALGO committee is the National Local Government Committee, for it is to this body that the NALGO members of the staff side of the National Joint Council remain answerable. In a union as big as NALGO, with its wide recruitment area, there is a continual tension between the desire to widen differentials and protect increments with percentage-type pay increases and the wish of the lower paid for flat rate wage settlements.
