ABSTRACT
There is a popular conception that the trade unions are run by a handful of big bosses and that the Labour Party slavishly obeys the crack of their whip. If all trade union delegations voted the same way they would swamp the conference. In practice there is no automatic trade union alignment. During the late 1960s the trade union movement began to swing violently to the left, as far to the left as it had been to the right in the 1950s. If any Labour politicians were to make demands which he thought incompatible with trade union interests, he would always put his union loyalties first. This was shown in the conflict which arose over the Labour Government’s proposed industrial relations legislation ‘In place of strife’. When the Heath Government introduced its own plans to deal with the unions and curb strikes, the full fury of the trade union movement was unleashed.
