ABSTRACT
The involvement of trade unions in contemporary political life is so pervasive that while some significant generalizations can be made about their formal political activity, no simple conclusion may be drawn about their purpose. For a period before World War II the philosophy of revolutionary syndicalism, which viewed parliamentary politics as futile, gripped many union activists and thrust some into national leadership of British unions. It is perhaps less well known that trade unions have always contained significant numbers who believed in and often worked for rightist causes. In any event, one can hardly equate the political views of the members in contemporary workplaces with the behaviour of the national institutions. The growth of oligarchy, the shift in the economic power to the less political shop stewards, the frequent alienation from the job—all these factors militate against such an equation.
