Trade Unions and the State: The Construction of Industrial Relations Institutions in Britain, 1890-2000

Trade Unions and the State: The Construction of Industrial Relations Institutions in Britain, 1890-2000

The collapse of Britain Powerful Labor Movement in the Lat quarter century has been one of the most significant and astonishing stories in the recent political history. How was the government of Margaret Thatcher and her successors able to tame the Unions? In analyzing how an entirely new industrial relations system was constructed after 1979, Howell offers a revision of history of British Trade Unions, in the twentieth century. Most scholar regard Britain's industrial relations institutions as a product of a largely laissez Faire system of labor relations, punctuated by occasional government interference. Howell, on the other hand, argues that the British state was the prime architect of three distinct systems of industrial relations established during the twentieth century The book contends that governments used a combination of administrative and Judicial actions, legislation, and a narrative of crisis to construct new forms of labor relations.

Understanding the demise of the unions require a reinterpretation of how these earlier systems were constructed, and the role of the British government in that process. Meticulously researched, Trade unions and the state not only sheds new light on one of Thatcher’s most significant achievements but also tells us a great deal about the role of the state in industrial relations.

Chris Howell 

Princeton University Press

2007

PDF

English

1890-2000

Paper