ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the development of self-organization within the National and Local Government Officers' Association (NALGO) from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. NALGO was formed in 1905 as a small guild for an elite of local and national government officers with the intention of promoting their professional advancement and social recreation. NALGO had established its own Race Equality Working Party and Race Advisory Committee in response to the Race Relations Act 1976 and its own burgeoning black membership. From 1986 onwards NALGO funded National Black Members' Conferences. Activists at all levels of the union were entitled to attend National Self-Organized Conferences on an annual basis, and motions were sent from the National Self-Organized Conferences to NALGO's Annual Conferences. By 1990 NALGO was embarking upon discussions with National Union of Public Employees (NUPE) and Confederation of Health Service Employees (COHSE) with a view to creating a single New Union for public sector workers.
