Social Democracy and Industrial Militiancy: The Labour Party, the Trade Unions and Incomes Policy, 1945-1947
Cambridge University Press, 12/10/2009
EAN 9780521125109, ISBN10: 0521125103
Paperback, 332 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.1 cm
Language: English
The attempt to establish a 'new social contract' between the Government and the unions, with a view to stabilising the economy and restraining industrial militancy, emerged as a burning issues of contemporary British politics during the 1970s. This study uncovers the roots of this development in the incomes policies of successive post-war Governments, especially of the 1964–70 Labour Government, and traces the way in which wage restraint was secured from the unions, or imposed upon them, in the context of the attempted registration of the unions within the existing economic and political order. Professor Panitch concentrates on the crucial role of the Labour Party and shows how Labour's incomes policies, and industrial relations generally, have derived less from a concern with socialist economic planning than from the Party's 'integrative' ideology, its rejection of the concept of class struggle in favour of affecting a compromise between the different classes in British society.
Preface
List of abbreviations
Introduction
1. The 1945 Labour Government
the mixed economy and wage restraint
2. Incomes policy and Labour in opposition
3. The voluntary incomes policy agreement
4. The devaluation of voluntarism
5. The politics of wage freeze
6. The statutory incomes policy - Labour Government versus labour movement
7. 'In place of strife'
8. Industrial militancy and political stagnation
Conclusion
Appendices
Notes
Index.