The Conservative Party and the Trade Unions since 1974
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.1979.tb01186.x |
| Author | Michael Moran |
| Date | 01 March 1979 |
| Published date | 01 March 1979 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY AND THE
TRADE UNIONS SINCE
1974’
MICHAEL MORAN
Manchester Polytechnic
Abstract.
Public policy on industrial relations can be interpreted as a variation on three
traditional themes: individualism; voluntary collectivism; and compulsory collectivism.
Before
1974
the Conservative Party had at various times been committed to policies suggested
by all these traditions. Since the Party’s expulsion from government in that year arguments
between Conservatives over industrial relations have likewise involved choices between
policies suggested by the three traditions. Despite superficial signs
of
a revival
of
in-
dividualism in the Party, the substance of policy has been decisively shaped by voluntary
collectivism.
I.
THE AIMS
OF
THIS PAPER
STUDIES
of public policy can be thought of as either power-centred or
content-centred
:
the former concentrate on how policies are made, and the
light this throws on the workings
of
power in political systems; the latter
describe, analyse and evaluate the substance of policy. This paper is in the
tradition
of
the latter: it tries to describe the intellectual content
of
arguments
conducted among Conservatives since the election defeat of February 1974
concerning the Party’s policies on industrial relations in general and on the
trade unions in particular. Its chief concern is with the debate conducted
between Conservatives in Parliament, especially among members of the
Shadow Cabinet, but it also looks at contributions from other groups in the
Party insofar as they have relevance to the arguments conducted within the
Parliamentary arena.
This exercise has two main purposes. It is in part an attempt at academic
journalism. Few will dispute that relations between the trade unions and the
Conservative Party are of importance; this paper tries to discover some pattern
in the flux of everyday political discussion. The second and more important
purpose
is
to conduct a case study of a very common phenomenon in British
politics: the failure of a policy and the manner in which politicians respond to
it. Of the many failures
of
British Governments in the post-war years few have
been as complete as the various attempts to cope with the problems of
industrial relations. All the major institutions concerned with the economy
have shared in this failure, but the Conservative Party’s central position has
left
it
particularly exposed: during the thirteen years
of
office after 1951
*
This
is
a revised version of a paper originally presented to the Annual Conference
of
the
Political Studies Association at the University
of
Liverpool,
4-6
April
1977.
1 am grateful to James
Douglas, and
to
this journal’s anonymous assessors,
for
their valuable comments on the earlier
draft.
Political
Studics.
Vol.
XXVII.
No.
1
(38-53)
MICHAEL MORAN 39
industrial relations produced increasingly severe and unresolved difficulties; in
opposition between 1964 and
1970
the problems were a source
of
division and
uncertainty; between 1970 and 1972 they were an important cause
of
the
failure of the Government’s economic policies; in the succeeding years they
divided the Party and contributed to its expulsion from
office;
and since then
they have been a source of turmoil among Conservatives.
The aims of this paper are therefore modest, and its organization is
correspondingly simple. The discussion divides into the following stages. Since
an important object is to discern some pattern in everyday political discussion,
the next section consists
of
a brief description of an intellectual framework for
the analysis of public policy in industrial relations. This is succeeded by an
account
of
events up to 1974 in terms of this framework. This provides the
necessary background for the succeeding discussion
of
the debates in the Party
which have taken place since then.
2. THREE TRADITIONS IN PUBLIC POLICY
Public policy on industrial relations and the economic policies associated
with Conservatism are linked by a common feature; they are both capable
of
interpretation as variations on the twin themes of individualism and col-
lectivism. Thus Kahn-Freund has argued that the historical development
of
labour law in Britain represents just such a variation, with the collectivist
theme dominant in the present century;’ while Harris has analysed
Conservative economic thinking likewise in terms of tensions between in-
dividualism and types of collectivism.* In the case of public policy on
industrial relations three ideological traditions can be distinguished
:
in-
dividualism; voluntary collectivism; and compulsory collectivism. They are
labelled ‘traditions’ because that is exactly what they are: deeply engrained
ways of thinking about the issues in que~tion.~
Individualism in turn has two strands, market and moral.
Market
in-
dividualism
is a set
of
views about how an economy should
be
organized. It
argues that the free play of market forces maximizes the efficient allocation of
resources. But this economic judgement is fuelled by
moral individualism,
which
consists of a strong concern with liberty in the negative sense of the absence of
external restraints, especially when those restraints take the form of state
compulsion
or
trade union ‘coercion’. In industrial relations individualism
produces an instinctive suspicion of collective bargaining generally, and of
trade unions in particular, since both are thought to distort in some degree the
workings of the free market in labour. Militant trade unionism, especially
when it coincides with the closed shop, is strongly rejected, since it conflicts
both with individualism’s economic assumptions and with its moral
preoccupations.
This tradition, pre-eminent in industrial relations during a large part
of
the
0.
Kahn-Freund, ‘Labour
Law’
in, M. Ginsberg (ed.),
Law
and Opinion in England in the
N. Harris,
Comperirion
und
the Corporute Society
(London, Methuen, 1972).
For
a more extended discussion see
my
The Politics
of’
Industrial
Relations
(London,
Twentieth
Century
(London, Stevens, 1958),
pp.
21
543.
Macmillan, 1977).
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