ABSTRACT
The trade unions’ historic connection with the Labour Party made it much more likely that they would co-operate with a Labour Government in securing ‘the planned growth of incomes’. A Yorkshire delegate, Arthur Scargill, noted that the Yorkshire miners had lobbied their MPs on the day before the meeting of the Special Conference for the re-adoption of the 200m ton capacity coal industry. The miners were asked to accept incomes - policy as part of a planned economy to replace deflation and stop-go which had led to the decline of their industry. National Power Loading Agreement (NPLA) was to prove vital for the relationship between the National Union of Mineworkers, the mineworker and politics. The implementation of the manifesto depended on economic expansion and a socialist incomes policy which sought to promote economic stability and social justice. As NPLA was a productivity agreement, wages could be increased without there being an open challenge to Government incomes policy.
