ABSTRACT
The most explicit statement of New Labour’s attitudes to strikes was in Prime Minister Tony Blair’s foreword to the 1998 White Paper Fairness at Work: ‘The days of strikes without ballots, mass picketing . . . and secondary action are over’ (Blair 1998). Ten years of government have not changed New Labour’s determination to maintain the Conservatives’ legislative framework on industrial action. Yet, as with all governments, it has had to deal with strikes (particularly in the public sector) pragmatically, balancing the need to control public-sector labour costs with the state’s preference for ‘industrial peace’, while avoiding fighting on more than one front at a time.
