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Chris Wrigley, ed., British Trade Unions, 1945–1995. New York: Manchester University Press, 1997. vi + 221 pp. $24.95 paper.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 April 2001
Abstract
It is well known to readers of this journal that the British labor movement is in a state of precipitous decline. A recent government White Paper, for example, reports that since 1990 alone the percentage of workplaces with no union members at all has risen from 36 percent to 47 percent. Perhaps more ominously, the percentage of workplaces that recognize trade unions has dropped from 66 percent in 1984 to 45 percent in 1998. From 1979, when trade union density was estimated at over 55 percent of the workforce, it is now hovering somewhere between 30 and 35 percent. It is safe to say that this low level has not been seen in Britain since before World War Two. Chris Wrigley's contribution to Manchester University Press's fine series on contemporary British history offers a timely collection of documents on the origin and development of these events. By design, this collection focuses on documents generated by the government, political parties, and private interest groups, most notably the Trades Union Congress (TUC). Thus six of the book's nine chapters provide a chronological overview of the vagaries of the British government's industrial relations policies during the postwar era, adequately supplemented with extracts from official TUC responses. Wrigley himself provides an effective and thoughtful editorial introduction that emphasizes not only just how precarious the trade unions' former position actually was, but also just how deep resentments against unions ran among certain sections of the Conservative party.
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- © 1999 The International Labor and Working-Class History Society