ABSTRACT
Until 1979 the British trade union movement experienced 40 years of almost unchecked growth. Over that period, the balance of advantage between employers and unions shifted significantly towards the latter in some respects. Among trade unions, however, power remained essentially sectional and decentralised except when the movement itself was under threat. As the role of the trade unions within the economy became increasingly contentious, the voluntary system of industrial relations was undermined by state intervention. The legal framework within which collective bargaining has been conducted has been in a condition of flux for over a decade. One of the stress points of a weakening economy, industrial relations became increasingly politicised around the trade union ‘problem’ as distributive conflict increased from the mid-1960s onwards. Major confrontations between unions and government resulted in the eventual collapse of the postwar consensus built around full employment policies and the maintenance of free collective bargaining. The corporatist experiment of the Social Contract also ended in failure. Since 1979, the trade unions have been virtually excluded from any role in industrial and economic policy-making by the Conservative government.
