Trade Union Education and Training in Britain:. A Critique of Public Policy
| Pages | 29-32 |
| Date | 01 May 1983 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb055023 |
| Published date | 01 May 1983 |
| Author | John Salmon |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
Trade Union
Education and
Training in
Britain:
A Critique of Public
Policy
by John Salmon
Lecturer in Industrial Relations,
Manchester Polytechnic
Introduction
The Labour Movement in Britain has long had a commit-
ment to the education of its membership. It is, however,
relatively recently that education and training, specifically
in areas of industrial relations, has become generally
available to the lay officials of unions. The considerable
growth in educational provision for workplace represen-
tatives has undoubtedly been one of the most significant
developments to emerge in British industrial relations dur-
ing the last ten years. But such a growth has not
developed purely out of the interests of trade unions, nor
has it just been a response to a need for educational provi-
sion and resources to meet the rapid increases in numbers
of shop stewards, which began to occur from the middle
of the 1960's.
The establishment of training and education as we now
know it emerged out of a public policy strategy which
sought to restructure labour relations by the extension of
collective bargaining through the creation of detailed com-
prehensive procedures and agreements to operate at com-
pany and workplace level. The key to this process was to
be the activities of the shop steward. Hence it has been
these workplace representatives who have been the major
recipients of the expansion of education and training.
However, it was intended that the main benefits would ac-
tually be seen in the improvements it brought to the na-
tion's industrial relations.
This article provides a brief account of the development of
trade union education and training[1] in relation to the
growth of public provision. The intention has been to seek
to identify the distinctive features which have underpinned
public policy. The implications of this analysis will be taken
up in a later article based on the results of an attitude
survey of managers, trade union officials, and shop
stewards towards public provision.
Trade Union Education and Public Policy
The need to educate is frequently proclaimed on trade
union banners and in renderings from union conferences.
Education for trade unionists was a cornerstone of the Vic-
torian labour movements' philosophy of "self help"[2].
The TUC, in 1921, adopted a report which urged a pro-
gramme of education for those elected to represent their
memberships. The report claimed it was:
. . .
.becoming
more urgent. . . . that trade unionists,
but more especially those holding positions of respon-
sibility. . . .should be men and women. . . .having such
trained capacity as will enable them not only to unders-
tand the immediate results of decisions and actions but
also to foresee possible ultimate results[3].
While organisations like the Workers' Educational Associa-
tion and the National Council for Labour Colleges were
established to provide education for members of the
Labour Movement[4], it was not until 1945 that individual
trade unions began to take seriously the question of
educational provision for their membership. From 1948,
the TUC General Council began to encourage affiliated
unions to consider training for shop stewards in areas such
as "costing", "elements of production", and "industrial
relations"[5]. By 1951, the TUC had itself begun shop
steward courses. It was, however, the growing influence
of shop stewards in workplace industrial relations which
began to become apparent in the late 1950s and the in-
creases in industrial conflict, particularly the incidence of
unofficial strikes, which encouraged an interest in shop
steward education beyond that of the trade unions[6].
In May 1963, for example, a joint statement issued by both
the TUC and the British Employers' Confederation (the
forerunner of the CBI) spelt out this renewed interest in
training for shop stewards:
The aim of training must be to assist stewards to carry
out their functions as responsible officers of the
unions[7].
It even went on to propose employer support for such a
purpose, recommending:
. . . .the possibility of extending the co-operation bet-
ween employers, unions and educational organisations
or institutions with the objective of providing more
courses of an appropriate nature for attendance at
which stewards might be released with pay[8].
ER 5,5 · 1983 29
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