ABSTRACT
The classic post-1945 route for European countries where politics were less conflict-dominated was one where trade unions played an important part in building a. political climate of relative national unity. The role of trade unions was thus highly ambivalent. In an immediate sense they fought to defend the rights of their members against the interests of their employers, whether they worked in the public or private sector. In a broader sense, however, trade unions often had a dampening effect on class conflict, for they acted as a buffer to dissatisfaction and arrived at compromises with employers before unrest was expressed in terms of widespread direct action. Thus trade unions often served to prevent small conflicts from growing into larger ones and sometimes prevented large-scale changes from taking place. In many instances, moderate socialist or social-democratic parties of government after 1945 had close links with trade unions and formal or implicit agreements between government, union leaders and employers emerged on pay and working conditions, which made for a relatively calm industrial relations climate. This was the case in Scandinavia, Austria, the Netherlands and Britain, for instance.
