ABSTRACT
Whitleyism, as seen in Chapter 2.3.2, was born in 1919 out of union militancy and a brief fl irtation by Government with industrial democracy. A remarkably similar set of circumstances recurred between its golden and diamond jubilee. The fl irtation with industrial democracy (the 1977 Bullock Report) may have been even briefer.1 Union militancy, however, was as great. Refl ecting the prevailing mood outside the Service, the largest staff association (the Civil and Public Services Association) adopted a policy of strike action in 1969, later supported by a fi ghting fund. Other associations quickly followed, as did national strikes in 1973, 1977 and 1979. Even the First Division Association, representing the most senior offi cials, was affi liated to the TUC by 1977. Whitleyism managed with some diffi culty to weather this storm. It could not, however, survive the radicalism of the Conservative Government after 1979. To face that challenge, the federal organisation of staff associations (which had grown out of collaboration on the ‘staff side’ of the National Whitley Council) was reconstituted as the Council of Civil Service Unions (CCSU). Thereafter, on both National and Departmental Councils the ‘staff’ side was symbolically re-titled the ‘trade union’ side.2 In October 1980, as has been seen, the Government then unilaterally revoked the national pay agreement – the very embodiment of Whitleyism – and it soon became evident that, unlike earlier revocations (as in 1975), it was to be permanent. The fi ve-month strike accordingly ensued in 1981. Whitleyism, as a national force, was never fully to recover. Why was there this escalation to emasculation? One obvious answer is that, as an embodiment of postwar consensus, Whitleyism could not contain the new political and economic forces of the 1970s. Within the Service, the negotiating freedom of staff associations was constrained both by mutual confl icts and mounting tension between the leadership and an increasingly militant rank-and-fi le.3 There were also the predations of other white-collar unions (such as the Association of Scientifi c, Technical and Managerial Staffs) to combat, as well as the TUC’s corporatist ambition to control both pay increases (as in the ‘social contract’) and industrial action (as during the ‘winter of discontent’). Parallel tensions beset the ‘offi cial’ side. Politically,
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it became ever more anomalous that Government – as the ‘employer’ – was represented by senior offi cials who were not wholly disinterested but had the power to bind Ministers to decisions.4 Administratively, the tension between the CSD (as the lead department after 1968) and the Treasury, as has been seen, intensifi ed. The CSD was regularly accused of ‘appeasement’ whenever its negotiators, alert to nuances in the associations’ position, supported a claim for improved pay and conditions. Conversely, the Treasury – typically backed by successive No. 10 Policy Units – was condemned for a lack of realism when denying the existence of genuine grievances which, if left unresolved, threatened ‘anarchy’ and thus administrative paralysis. Outside the Service, moreover, a bigger battle was brewing. Whitleyism’s antagonists (militant activists on the one hand and monetarists on the other) were joining in an unholy alliance to promote a return to unfettered free collective bargaining.5 As on the English Committee, a new ‘consensus’ – albeit one spuriously based on competing ideologies – was evolving. To what extent did this new consensus, particularly in its monetarist mode, contain a germ of truth? Rather than being a bulwark against ‘anarchy’ as its proponents presumed, did Whitleyism perpetuate and even intensify an existing state of anarchy? In other words, did its rituals and rhetoric impede modernisation? Fulton certainly feared that it could ‘hamper effective management’, not least because the structure of staff associations was based on the very class divisions which unifi ed grading was designed to abolish.6 Increasingly, the economic wisdom was also that, despite their retrospective nature, annual pay awards based on ‘comparability’ were infl ationary. Albeit only correcting lags, they nevertheless increased the PSBR and prevented Government from providing a lead for the private sector on future wage restraint. Did Whitleyism, therefore, impede – however unwittingly – the drive for both effi ciency and economy? This is the fundamental question which this chapter will address. It will focus principally on the staff associations and their contrasting record of collaboration and confl ict with Government. First, however, it is necessary to clarify their individual and collective organisation.
