ABSTRACT

Voluntarism was predicated upon assumptions about the efficacy of industrial self-government, and bottom-up or in-house initiatives for improving industrial relations. As such, a Conservative government would seek to avoid legislative intervention in both internal trade union affairs, and in relations between employer and employees, unless expressly invited to intervene by those directly involved. This chapter concerns the degree to which Conservative domestic policies developed between 1945 and 1951, especially with regard to trade unionism and industrial relations, and inter alia the Party's attempt to render itself more electorally attractive to voters who had not previously voted Conservative, or who had switched from the Conservatives to Labour in 1945. In 1947 the industrial policy committee produced The Industrial Charter, which largely provided the intellectual basis of the Conservative Party's approach to economic affairs, industrial relations and trade unionism for the next 17 years.