Introduction

This chapter provides discussion on the strategy and structure of the British trade union movement in relation to its role and purpose in modern society. This philosophy of ‘changing not’ is particularly strong in the trade unions concerning their structure and strategy. ‘Tradition weighs like an alp,’ wrote Karl Marx, and it is certainly true of trade unionism. Although the primary purpose of trade unions is to maintain and improve the working lives of their members, most unions include, in the objectives outlined in their constitutions, the political aim of ‘abolishing capitalism’. In the inter-war years the mining industry was, without doubt, the cockpit of industrial struggles in Britain and was in the forefront of the massive employers-trade union confrontations of the period. Management at production level was arrogant and arbitrary with trade union recognition generally tardy and limited.