ABSTRACT
This chapter entails senior Ministers seeking to incorporate trade union leaders into national-level economic partnership and policy-making forums, in the increasingly desperate hope that this would help them to appreciate the problems facing the British economy, and thus of the need for a corresponding change in trade union behaviour. Trade union fear and fury over this decision, and the resultant ambiguities over their legal position, seemed to vindicate the Conservative Party's decision to launch a Royal Commission into trade union law, albeit deferring this until after the 1964 general election. However, it was not until the Conservative Party was in Opposition from 1964 to 1970, that this perspective seemed to acquire credence among the Party leadership, whereupon the emphasis of Conservative industrial relations policy shifted from voluntarism to that of strengthening the authority of official trade union leaders, and instilling greater order into industrial relations by tackling unofficial strikes, through legislative measures.
