The trade union contribution to the British Labour Party

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Thorpe
Keyword(s):  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
Prime Ministers ◽  
British Labour ◽  
The Relationship

Andrew Thorpe examines the long-established and continuing relationship between the trade unions and the Labour Party. He argues that whilst both organisations have changed over the years, and despite the contentious nature of the alliance, the relationship has proved enduring and profitable because it has made them stronger together than apart. In particular, he examines the origins of this relationship, how it has introduced and how it has intruded into the policy, membership, party structure and parliamentary leadership of Labour Party. Only one of Labour’s six Labour prime ministers. James Callaghan, has come from a trade union background but the others, often coming from a socialist background, have had, as Callaghan did, come to an arrangements with the trade unions movement within the context of what Lewis Minkin referred to as a ‘contentious alliance’.

scholarly journals The Political Activities Of A Trade Union, 1906–1914

1957 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
J. E. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
Political Activities ◽  
Political Work ◽  
Common Ownership ◽  
Union Leaders ◽  
British Labour ◽  
Liberal Trade

The British Labour Party was not explicitly socialist until 1918. In February of that year a Special Conference adopted a new constitution which stated that the ultimate aim of the party was:-“To secure for the producers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry, and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible, upon the basis of common ownership of the means of production and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service.”Before this change, Ramsay MacDonald, writing in 1911, had said: “The Labour Party is not Socialist. It is a union of Socialist and trade-union bodies for immediate political work…” The new party, founded in 1900 as the Labour Representation Committee, was in many ways un manage de convenance of militant Socialists and Glad-stonian Liberal trade-union leaders. The “immediate political work” for which these groups came together was the representation of the working class in parliament. Of the need for such representation both sides were firmly convinced: the Socialists because they hoped to convert the trade unions to their own way of thinking; the trade-union leaders because they were disappointed by the failure of the official Liberal party constituency caucuses to adopt more working-class candidates.

At the crossroads: the Labour Party, the trade unions and the choices of direction for the democratic left

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Wrigley
Keyword(s):  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
Comparative Data ◽  
Trade Union Movement ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
Union Movement ◽  
British Labour ◽  
The Status

Wrigley provides a vital sweeping overview of the path the British Labour Party took during the war. Utilising comparative data highlighting the labour movement across Europe, Wrigley shows how the trade union movement played a key role in the growth of Labour Party in a much needed transnational context. Here we see Labour moving from the status of a client of the Liberals in the summer of 1914 to one where it could meaningfully compete to form a government of its own in under a decade.

Party Matters

2009 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Hopkin
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Institutional Change ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
National Party ◽  
Strategic Responses ◽  
British Labour ◽  
Real Picture ◽  
The Relationship

This article addresses the relationship between political decentralization and the organization of political parties in Great Britain and Spain, focusing on the Labour Party and the Socialist Party, respectively. It assesses two rival accounts of this relationship: Caramani's `nationalization of politics' thesis and Chhibber and Kollman's rational choice institutionalist account in their book The Formation of National Party Systems. It argues that both accounts are seriously incomplete, and on occasion misleading, because of their unwillingness to consider the autonomous role of political parties as advocates of institutional change and as organizational entities. The article develops this argument by studying the role of the British Labour Party and the Spanish Socialists in proposing devolution reforms, and their organizational and strategic responses to them. It concludes that the reductive theories cited above fail to capture the real picture, because parties cannot only mitigate the effects of institutional change, they are also the architects of these changes and shape institutions to suit their strategic ends.

scholarly journals Milovan Đilas and the British Labour Party, 1950-1960

2018 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mateja Režek
Keyword(s):  
Labour Party ◽  
Eastern Bloc ◽  
Self Management ◽  
Political Transformation ◽  
Democratic Socialism ◽  
Authoritarian State ◽  
British Labour ◽  
Democratic Parties ◽  
Social Democratic Parties ◽  
The Relationship

The article deals with Milovan Đilas’ political transformation presented through an analysis of his connections with the British Labourites, and with the reaction of the Labour Party to the Đilas Affair. After the dispute with the Cominform, Yugoslav leaders tried to initiate alternative international contacts through Western socialist and social democratic parties, considering the most suitable partner the British Labour Party. Official contacts with the latter were established in 1950, the key role in the dialogue with the British Labourites played by the head of the Commission for International Relations, Milovan Đilas. In the aftermath of the Đilas Affair, the once warm relations between the British Labourites and Yugoslav Communists grew rather cool, but the leadership of the Labour Party did not wish to compromise their relations with Yugoslavia, and therefore reacted to it with considerable wariness. Although Yugoslavia remained an authoritarian state under the leadership of the Communist Party, in the eyes of the West it continued to represent a significant factor in the destabilisation of the Eastern Bloc, and the friendly relationship between the Labour Party and the Yugoslav Communists were primarily based on foreign policy interests of the two parties. In the second half of the 1950s, the relationship between the Labour Party and the Yugoslav Communists rested, even more than before, on pragmatic geopolitical consideration and not on ideological affinity; the interest of the British Labourites in the Yugoslav self-management experiment decreased significantly, as did the Yugoslav interest in democratic socialism, the idea that Đilas was so passionate about.

scholarly journals The changing face of union action put to the test by neo-liberal reforms in France

Tempo Social ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-156
Author(s):  
Baptiste Giraud
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Collective Bargaining ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
Union Action ◽  
The Relationship

This article reviews how French trade union are coping with the neo-liberal policies since the early 1980s. It shows their divergent reactions, and how these liberal reforms are implemented in a context of transformation of trade union action: the use of strikes is more difficult at the same time as the relationship between trade unions and collective bargaining is transformed in a logic of depoliticizing their strategies of action. These developments did not prevent a resurgence of strikes in the 2000s. It reveals the limits of the trade unions’ power of political influence, that implies the use of collective action. However, strikes have declined further in recent years, revealing the weakening of trade union mobilisation power.

Chapter II. The Home Economy in 1977 and 1978

1977 ◽  
Vol 79 ◽  
pp. 26-37
Keyword(s):  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
The Other ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Basic Norm ◽  
The Government

The critical assumption for this forecast is that relating to pay policy when Stage Two expires in July. At the time of writing (early February), formal negotiations have not yet begun. Preliminary positions have, however, been taken up, and it seems clear that the gap between the hopes of the Government and the aims of the trade unions is much wider than at the comparable point in the Stage Two negotiations. Both the Labour Party conference and the Trade Union Congress last autumn passed motions which called for priority to be given, when Stage Two ended, to four factors in the next stage. These were the restoration of satisfactory differentials and the correction of anomalies and inequities, an emphasis on the improvement of the position of the low-paid, the consolidation of Stage One and Two increases into basic rates for the calculation of overtime, piece-work and shift payments, and provision for productivity agreements. Almost independently of the agreed basic norm, a liberal interpretation of these demands could lead to rises in average earnings in excess of 20 per cent. On the other hand, the majority of trade unionists seem to accept the need for continued restraint, though stressing that there is an imperative need for greater flexibility in Stage Three.

scholarly journals The Formation and the Evolution of the British Labour Party

2018 ◽  
pp. 50-62
Author(s):  
Olha Buturlimova
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Development ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Party System ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
Liberal Party ◽  
Xxth Century ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
British Labour ◽  
The Individual

The article examines the processes of organizational development of the British Labour Party in the early XXth century, the evolution of the party structure and political programme in the twentieths of the XXth century. Special attention is paid to researching the formation of the Social Democratic Federation, Fabian Society and Independent Labour Party till the time of its joining to the Labour Representation Committee in 1900 and adopting the “Labour Party” name in 1906. The author’s aim was to comprehensively investigate the political manifests and activities of those organizations on the way of transformation from separate trade-unions and socialist groups to apparent union of labour, and then to the mass and wide represented parliamentary party. However, the variety of social base of those societies is distinguished, and difference of socialist views and tactics of achieving the final purpose are emphasized. Considerable attention is paid to the system of the individual membership and results thereof in the process of the evolution of the Labour Party’s organization. The reorganization of the Labour party in 1918, Representation of the People Act, 1918 and the crisis in the Liberal party were favourable for the further evolution of the Labour Party. It is summarized that the social base, the history of party’s birth, the conditions of formation and the party system had influenced the process of the evolution of the ideological and political concepts of Labourizm.

Does the Trade Union Promote the Employee Development in Tobacco Enterprise: Evidence from China

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 5717-5725
Author(s):  
Sun Chenghao ◽  
Zhang Yuxin ◽  
Sun Hanqiao
Keyword(s):  
Regression Model ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Stepwise Regression ◽  
Employee Development ◽  
Mediating Effect ◽  
Self Development ◽  
The Relationship

Objectives: Based on the data of questionnaire collected from tobacco enterprise, this paper uses regression model to focus on the relationship between the trade unions and the employee development. Besides, causal stepwise regression is adopted to find out the influential mechanism. The results show that the trade union in tobacco enterprise can significantly promote employee development by the mediating effect of contract guarantee, and this effect is more obvious in female groups. It is important to strengthen the development of trade union, creating more self-development opportunities for employees in tobacco enterprise.

Labour united and divided from the 1830s to the present

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
British Isles ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
British Labour ◽  
Recent Trends ◽  
The 19Th Century

Spanning a period which stretches from the 19th century to the present day, this book takes a novel look at the British labour movement by examining the interaction between trade unions, the Labour Party, other parties of the Left, and other groups such as the Co-op movement and the wider working class, to highlight the dialectic nature of these relationships, marked by consensus and dissention. It shows that, although perceived as a source of weakness, those inner conflicts have also been a source of creative tension, at times generating significant breakthroughs. This book seeks to renew and expand the field of British labour studies, setting out new avenues for research so as to widen the audience and academic interest in the field, in a context which makes the revisiting of past struggles and dilemmas more pressing than ever. The book together brings well-established labour historians and political scientists, thus establishing dialogue across disciplines, and younger colleagues who are contributing to the renewal of the field. It provides a range of case studies as well as more wide-ranging assessments of recent trends in labour organising, and will therefore be of interest to academics and students of history and politics, as well as to practitioners, in the British Isles and beyond.

The Party Connection: Divergence and Convergence in the British Labour Movement

1978 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 458-484
Author(s):  
Lewis Minkin
Keyword(s):  
Labour Party ◽  
Central Feature ◽  
Society Meeting ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
The Social ◽  
British Labour ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Fabian Society

The consultations which led to the Social Contract of 1973 are understood to have been initiated as a result of a proposal by Jack Jones made to a Fabian Society meeting held at the 1971 Labour Party Conference. At that meeting Jones told the story of a man who having completed fifty years of marriage was asked if he had ever contemplated divorce. He replied, ‘Divorce—never. Murder—often’.In the past two decades the relationship between the unions and the labour party — the central feature of labour politics in Britain — has undergone some remarkable changes. It has passed through severe crisis: reinforcing tensions which built up in the 1960s became so great at the end of the decade that the alliance appeared ‘threatened as never before’. One scholar of labour movement politics suggested at the time that there might be a life-span to ‘Labour’ parties. To the Left of the Labour Party some revolutionary critics looked to a militant union break with ‘the immense contradiction’. To the Right of the Labour Party some social democratic critics looked to a realignment which would facilitate the emergence of a new radical centre party.

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