Explaining British voluntarism
2011; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 52; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/0023656x.2011.632512
ISSN1469-9702
Autores Tópico(s)Employment and Welfare Studies
ResumoAbstract This article deals with one of the most distinctive features of the British system of industrial relations – its voluntarist nature – and focuses on internal divisions within the labor union movement as an explanation for its persistence. It is widely recognized that the British labor union movement was throughout the twentieth century far more reluctant to accept government interference with wage bargaining than its counterparts in most other countries. Yet much of the literature has ignored the crucial importance for this of labor union attitudes towards the redistributive consequences of such intervention. This article shows that much of the resistance of British unions to government interference with wage bargaining can be explained by their opposition to its redistributive consequences. Based on an analysis of several decades of wage bargaining, the article advances another way of looking at the failure of British policy-makers to create durable incomes policies aimed at achieving wage restraint in the post-war period and the long-standing opposition of the British union movement to the introduction of a statutory national minimum wage. Notes 1. For some prominent examples, see Flanders, 'The Tradition', 352–70; Minkin, The Contentious, 429; Finlayson, Citizen, 123; Campbell, Fishman, and McIlroy, 'The Post-War Compromise', 76; Howell, Trade Unions, 170. 2. Often this is based on the misguided assumption that these consequences mainly affect the distribution of earnings between workers and employers. Sometimes it is also based on the assumption that unions are generally guided by notions of broad worker solidarity – a view that overlooks the importance of occupational unionism. On this, see, for example, Oude Nijhuis, 'Worker Solidarity', 296–329. 3. For some prominent examples over the years, see Flanagan, Soskice, and Ulman, Unionism, 673–5; Swenson, Fair Shares, 5 and 26; McIlroy, Trade Unions, 61; Metcalf, Hansen, and Charlwood, 'Unions', 61; Swenson, Capitalists, 35. 4. See, for example, Whiteside, 'Industrial Relations and Social Welfare', 114; Owen, From Empire; Mares, Taxation, 178. 5. See Lehmbruch and Schmitter, Patterns of Corporatist Policy-Making, 21; Cronin, The Politics of State Expansion, 42–3; Taylor, The Trade Union Question, 172; Ludlam, The Impact of Sectoral Cleavage; Rhodes, 'Restructuring', 22; Dorey, Wage Politics, 142. 6. For these conventional explanations, see Blackburn, 'The Problem of Riches', 124–38; Blackburn, A Fair, 189; Gospel and Palmer, British Industrial, 208; Minkin, The Contentious, 429; Metcalf, 'The British', 172; Terry, Redefining, 157; Rubery and Edwards, 'Low Pay', 460. See also Howell, Trade Unions, 181. 7. For this view of British unions, see Forth and Millward, 'The Impact', 76; McIlroy, Trade Unions, 61; Metcalf, Hansen, and Charlwood, 'Unions', 61–75. 8. See, for example, Gordon, New Deals; Martin, Stuck in Neutral; Swenson, Capitalists; Mares, The Politics. 9. See, for example, Flanders, 'The Tradition', 352–70; Metcalf, 'The British', 172–201; Lowe, The Welfare State, 292. 10. A large part of these writings builds on pioneering work from Swenson, 'Bringing Capital Back In', 513–45. For a different perspective, see Oude Nijhuis, 'Worker Solidarity', 296–329. 11. For some prominent examples, see Swenson, Fair Shares, 5 and 26; McIlroy, Trade Unions, 61; Card, 'The Effect', 297–8; Metcalf, Hansen, and Charlwood, 'Unions', 61; Pontusson, Rueda, and Way, 'Comparative Political', 288; Pontusson, Inequality and Prosperity, 63. 12. See, for example, Pontusson and Rueda, 'Wage Inequality', 350-83; Card, Lemieux, and Riddell, 'Unions and Wage Inequality', 519–62; Scheve and Stasavage, 'Institutions', 215–53. 13. On this importance in various countries, see, for example, Zolberg, 'How Many Exceptionalisms?'; Fulcher, 'On the Explanation', 246–74; King, Actively Seeking Work?, 3–4. 14. For these descriptions, see, for example, Ross, 'What is Progressive', 610; Fletcher and Gapasin, Solidarity Divided, 13.7 15. For this and the difference between occupation unions and industrial unions, see Scase, 'Inequality', 28. 16. For a thorough account of this, see Ebbinghaus and Waddington, 'United Kingdom/Great Britain', 706–56. 17. In 1950, craft unions represented some 23% of all unionized workers in the United Kingdom, a number that decreased to 11% in 1980 and 2.3% in 1995. Occupationally organized white-collar unions (also called white-collar associations) organized some 5% of all workers in 1950, a figure that increased to 21% by 1980, and then decreased to 11% by 1995. See Ebbinghaus and Waddington, 'United Kingdom/Great Britain', 739. 18. See Baccaro and Simoni, 'Organizational Determinants', 596. 19. Some of the first references to this can be found in Olson, The Logic. 20. See, for example, Lange, 'Unions', 98–123; Franzese and Hall, 'Institutional Dimensions', 173–204. 21. Flanders, Management, 192–3. See also Hyman and Brough, Social Values, 105–6. 22. Swenson, Fair Shares, 28. See also Crouch, 'The Drive', 229; Flanagan, Soskice, and Ulman, Unionism, 673–5; Mares, Taxation, 177 and 203. 23. For a list of industries in which flat-rate increases were common during the first two years of the war, see MRC, MSS.292/110/1: TUC Research Department, War additions or cost of living sliding scales introduced during the war, 18 November 1940; ibid., Wage increases since the war in industries not covered by cost-of-living sliding scales, August 1941. 24. MRC, MSS.292/110/1: War additions or bonuses, December 1940. 25. See Turner and Jackson, 'On the Stability', 1–18. 26. This is also how the TUC General Council explained the narrowing in differentials that came about during the first half of the 1940s, when occupational discontent with this came to a head in the immediate post-war period. See MRC, MSS.292/110.1/2a: Wage policy – statement to affiliated unions, 20 June 1950, 2. 27. For a good description of this position, see Kynaston, Austerity in Britain. 28. According to Torben Iversen, for example, wage compression is the price that has to be paid to get support for wage restraint from unions representing lower-paid workers. In his view, wage restraint leads to 'intraorganizational bargaining [which] tends to result in egalitarian wage policies because low-wage unions can veto proposals that do not distribute wage increases "fairly" among members'. Why unions representing higher-paid workers, which presumably also have veto power, would agree to such outcomes is left unclear – a problem that is common in much of the literature on wage restraint. See Iversen, Contested Economic Institutions, 29–31. For similar arguments, see Flanagan, Soskice, and Ulman, Unionism, 673–75; Swenson, Capitalists, 35. 29. For events in the building and engineering industries, where craft unions were particularly strong, see MRC, MSS.292/110/2: Proposed increase in basic rates of wages and introduction of incentive payment system, September 1947; ibid., Memorandum on the need for a new wages structure in the engineering industry, June 1945. 30. For this acknowledgment, see, for example, MRC, MSS.292/110.44/1b: Meeting between Ministers and a Special Committee of the Trades Union Congress, 11 February 1948, 2–3; MRC, MSS.292/110.1/2a: Wage policy – statement to affiliated unions, 20 June 1950, 2; ibid., Letter from Guild of Insurance Officials, 23 June 1950. 31. MRC, MSS.292/110.44/2b: Special committee on the economic situation, report of a meeting with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Foreign Secretary, and the Minister of Health, 14 November 1949, 6. See also ibid., 22 November 1949, 2. 32. TUC (1948), Report, 290. 33. MRC, MSS.292/110.44/2b: Special committee on the economic situation, report of a meeting with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Foreign Secretary, and the Minister of Health, 14 November 1949, 6. See also ibid., 22 November 1949, 2. 34. MRC, MSS.292/110.44/2a: Letter from the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen, 30 January 1950. 35. MRC, MSS.292/110.33/2a: Minutes special committee on the economic situation, 26 April 1950. 36. MRC, MSS.292/110.44/2a: Wages policy – statement to affiliated unions, 20 June 1950, 2. See also MRC, MSS202/110.44/2b: Wages policy, June 1950. 37. MRC, MSS.292110.44/2a: Letter from the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen, 30 November 1949. 38. Of course, union discontent over increases in prices and profits was by no means unique to the United Kingdom, but was a common complaint in all European countries where the dire economic situation of the war experience compelled unions to comply with government demands for wage moderation. Yet in many of these countries, like the Netherlands, it did not lead to a breakdown of the incomes policy. See, for example, Windmuller, Labor Relations, 252–71. 39. MRC, MSS.292/110.44/2a: Minutes special committee on the economic situation, 9 May 1950. 40. See Pelling, A History, 226. 41. The latter would of course have furthered the cause of wage restraint, but the problem here is that the presence of occupational unionism in the United Kingdom was in itself a major cause for the decentralized nature of decision-making there. On this, see Fulcher, 'On the Explanation', 246–74. 42. In 1970, a male full-time worker in the lowest decile of the manual distribution earned 67.3% of the median wage, compared with 67.7% in 1938 (and 68.6% in 1886). In the same year, a male full-time worker in the highest decile of the manual distribution earned 147.5% of the median wage, compared with 145.2% in 1938 (and 143.1% in 1886). In following decades, the share held by the top decile would only increase. See Pond, 'Low Pay', 1–10. 43. PRO, Lab 10/2228: Draft interim report of the working party on a national minimum wage, 28 August 1964. 44. Before Labour placed it on the agenda in the mid-1960s, the problem of low pay and the related issue of wage differentials had received very little attention from the broader labor union movement. As documented by the low-pay expert Colin Duncan, the issue of wage differentials and the related problem of low pay were 'rarely raised in the General Council's written submissions to Congress or in the debates which followed […]. Not until the latter half of the 1960s did "low pay" appear to feature as a regular and prominent issue for debate.' Duncan, Low Pay, 79–81. 45. See, for example, Esping-Andersen and Van Kersbergen, 'Contemporary Research on Social Democracy', 191; Rothstein, Just Institutions Matter, 151; Huber and Stephens, Development and Crisis, 1; Swank, Global Capital, 257. 46. The so-called power resources perspective, which dominated the literature on welfare state development and social democracy up to the first decade of this century, argued, for example, that state intervention works to 'emancipate' workers from market dependence or 'compensate' them for their disadvantaged position on the labor market. Esping-Andersen, The Three Worlds, 22–6; Korpi, The Democratic, 83. See also Korpi, 'Power Resources', 167–206. 47. See, for example, Swenson, Fair Shares, 26–30. For the United Kingdom, see Forth and Millward, 'The Impact', 76. 48. For union attitudes on the matter in the years before a Labour government first came forward with its proposal, see Bowlby, 'Union Policy', 72–84. 49. See, for example, Gospel and Palmer, British, 208; Minkin, The Contentious, 428; Metcalf, 'The British', 172; Terry, Redefening, 157; Rubery and Edwards, Low Pay, 460. 50. Pond and Winyard, The Case, 59. 51. Blackburn, 'The Problem of Riches', 131. See also Keevash, 'Wages Councils', 217–32. 52. Lewis Minkin does admit that 'there was a worry that the policy might prove an inflationary lever as unions attempted to preserve differentials'. But he clearly gives more importance to traditional voluntarist arguments by arguing: 'For years the tradition of free collective bargaining and anxiety over a possible undermining of union functions had been major obstacles to the Movement's support for a statutory minimum wage.' Minkin, The Contentious, 428. See also Howell, 'Trade Unions and the State,' 171. 53. Several years later, in 1970, the TUC estimated that roughly half of all workers classified as 'low paid' were active in highly unionized sectors that were defined as high paid. MRC, MSS.292B/116/1: LPWP 6/1, Extent of and reasons for low pay, 27 January 1970. 54. Largely confined to declining sectors or sectors with very low levels of union organization, only about half of all low-paid workers were active in sectors covered by wage councils. This share would steadily decline in coming years. In addition, the minimum rates set by the wage councils were often far too low to solve the problem of low pay (sometimes they were as low as 30% of average earnings in the industry) and were frequently undercut by employers. See Pond and Winyard, The Case, 20–9; and Dolado et al., 'The Economic Impact', 353. 55. PRO, Lab 10/2149: Working party on a national minimum wage. Draft report, 31 December 1964. 56. PRO, Lab 10/2228: Draft report, working party on a national minimum wage, 22 February 1965. 57. PRO, Lab 10/2162: Working party on national minimum wage. Minutes of the first meeting, 26 May, 1964; MRC, MSS.292B/110.44/1: Incomes, costs and prices, 11 December 1963. 58. PRO, Lab 10/3180: Interdepartmental working party on a national minimum wage, note for chairman, 1968. 59. MRC, MSS.292B/110.8/10: Minutes of the fifth meeting of the Incomes Policy Committee, 16 February 1966; MRC, MSS.292B/110.8/10: Summary report of a meeting between a panel of the Incomes Policy Committee and representatives of Iron and Steel Trades Confederation, 24 November 1965. 60. PRO, BN 72/48: Minimum National Wage, note by R.S. Swift, 26 September 1967; MRC, MSS.292B/115.4/4: Giles Radice and John Edmunds, Why not a national minimum? 61. PRO, BN 72/48: Meeting to discuss the concept of a national minimum wage, 19 September 1968. 62. It is not clear exactly when the Labour Party consulted the TUC on the matter. The first serious thinking within the TUC on a statutory national minimum wage started in 1969, though. MRC, MSS.292B/115.4/3: Equal pay. Sub-committee on costs. Possible cost of equal pay and a national minimum wage, 5 August 1968; MRC, MSS.292B/115.4/3: Equal pay. Sub-committee on costs. Possible cost of equal pay and a national minimum wage, 5 August 1968. 63. MRC, MSS.292B/115.4/3: Low pay: further appraisal in the light of union comments, 10 June 1970. 64. The TGWU union would repeat these concerns in later years. See Terry, Redefining, 158. See also MRC, MSS.292D/116/6: Public Services Committee, Low pay in the public services, 5 July 1983. 65. MRC, MSS.292B/115.4/3: Low pay: further appraisal in the light of union comments, 10 June 1970. 66. MRC, MSS.292B/115.4/3: Low pay: further appraisal in the light of union comments. Annex: summary of union comments, 10 June 1970. 67. Ibid. 68. MRC, MSS.292B/116/1: LPWP 6/1, Extent of and reasons for low pay, 27 January 1970. 69. MRC, MSS.292B/115.4/3: Low pay: report of a working party, 11 February 1970. 70. MRC, MSS.292B/115.4/4: Statutory national minimum wage – some underlying considerations, 2 December 1969. 71. Some representatives nevertheless argued the latter. MRC, MSS.292B/161/1: LPWP 6/1, LPWP 4/3, National Minimum Wage, 27 January 1970. 72. MRC, MSS.292B/115.4/4: LPWP, restructuring incomes and jobs, 12 November 1969. 73. MRC, MSS.292B/116/1: LPWP 4/3, 2 December 1969. 74. MRC, MSS.292B/115.4/3: TUC circular to the general secretaries of all affiliated organizations, 30 July 1970. 75. MRC, MSS.292B/115.4/3: Low pay: further appraisal in the light of union comments, 10 June 1970; MRC, MSS.292D/161/1: Minutes of the second meeting (1970–71), 11 November 1970. 76. MRC, MSS.292B/115.4/3: Low pay: report of a working party, 11 February 1970. 77. MRC, MSS.292B/115.4/3: Low pay: further appraisal in the light of union comments, 10 June 1970. 78. PRO, FG/1762: Incomes policy, 21 December 1972. 79. For a full overview of wage settlements each year, see Ashenfelter and Layard, 'Incomes Policy', 128. 80. The government also promised to repeal the 1971 Industrial Relations Act, which, among other things, imposed limitations on strikes, and introduced an economic program that, among other things, increased the public pension and introduced subsidies for food prices, fares and rents. For a full overview, see MRC, MSS.292D/110.44/9: The budget and the social contract, 1975. 81. For the manual–non-manual differential, see Elliot and Fallick, 'Pay Differentials', 381. 82. In 1979, a male full-time worker in the lowest decile of the manual distribution earned 68.3% of the median wage, compared with 68.2% in 1971. In the same year, a male full-time worker in the highest decile of the manual distribution earned 148.5% of the median wage, compared with 146.1% in 1971. See Mayhew, 'Incomes Policy', 80. 83. Ibid., 92; See also Steele, 'Incomes Policies', 136. 84. See Ebbinghaus and Waddington, 'United Kingdom/Great Britain', 739. 85. Representing the much larger group of semi-skilled and unskilled workers, Britain's general unions had always been larger than the craft unions, that only represented skilled manual workers. For this, and for an overview of the share of the total membership held by other union types, see Ebbinghaus and Waddington, 'United Kingdom/Great Britain', 739. 86. For craft union opposition to the policy, see MRC, MSS.292D/110.33/10: Extract of committee minutes, 1975; MRC, MSS.292D/20/9: General Council, minutes of the ninth meeting, 28 April 1976, 99. For an overview of the voting in the General Council, see Dorey, Wage Politics, 152. 87. For the warning, see MRC, MSS292D/20/8: General Council, minutes of the tenth meeting, 21 May 1975, 101. 88. For the debate in the TUC, see MRC, MSS.292D/110.44/12: Minutes of the ninth meeting of the Economic Committee, 26 April 1976, 83. For the outcome, see Ashenfelter and Layard, 'Incomes Policy', 128; Dorey, Wage Politics, 152–3. 89. Following negotiations with general union leaders, both the 1948 and 1976 resolutions also asked the government for 'special measures in order to assist workers on low pay', which may have facilitated their acceptance by a majority of union representatives. See TUC, Report, 637, 678. 90. Brown, 'Incomes Policy', 27–49. 91. Although formally enacted by law, there was hardly any oversight. Moreover, on those rare occasions in which drift did lead to sanctions, the burden fell almost completely on employers. See Fallick and Elliot, Incomes Policies, 60. 92. See Ashenfelter and Layard, 'Incomes Policy', 130. 93. MRC, MSS.292D/110.33/14: Draft statement General Council, 19 July 1977. 94. For the list, see MRC, MSS.292D/110.44/12: Form of the pay policy. Letters from unions, 14 April 1976. See also MRC, MSS.292D/110.44/14: Letter from Derik Palmer of the AUEW, 17 June 1977; Ibid., 13: Letter from the Police Federation of England and Wales to the General Council, 18 May 1977; Ibid., Letter from the Association of University Teachers, 10 February 1977; Ibid., 12: Letter from the Institution of Professional Civil Servants, 31 October 1975. 95. MRC, MSS.292D/110.44/13: Pay objectives 1977-1978: Union views, 13 April 1977. 96. MRC, MSS.292D/110.44/14: Britain on the Brink?, 30 June 1977, 2. 97. Ibid., 2–4. 98. Taylor, 'The Trade Union "Problem"', 205. 99. In 1977, the TUC did not refute the guidelines set by the government, but was already no longer willing to take responsibility for pushing it through. It strongly opposed the 5% guideline of 1978. See Scharpf, Crisis and Choice, 83–6. 100. MRC, MSS.292D/160.31/2: Minutes of the seventh meeting of the social policy sub-committee held on Tuesday, 7 October 1976. 101. See Bowlby, 'Union Policy', 72. 102. See Minkin, The Contentious, 429; Metcalf, 'The British', 172; Blackburn, A Fair, 189–90. 103. See Ebbinghaus and Waddington, 'United Kingdom/Great Britain', 739. 104. MRC, MSS.292D/116/8: Letter from the Engineers' and Managers' Association, 9 June 1986. 105. For an overview of supporters and opponents in the debate leading up to the acceptance by the Congress of the statutory national minimum wage, see MRC, MSS.292D/116/6: Public Services Committee, Low pay in the public services, 5 July 1983; MRC, MSS.292D/116/6: TUC Economic Committee, Low pay, 11 May 1983. 106. See Terry, Redefining, 158. See also MRC, MSS.292D/116/6: Public Services Committee, Low pay in the public services, 5 July 1983. 107. Some of its predecessors had done so before. The National Union of Vehicle Builders (NUVB) was, for instance, the first union to demand a statutory national minimum wage in the post-war period. In the 1960s and 1970s, the TGWU had supported its introduction. See Blackburn, 'The Problem of Riches', 131; Pond and Winyard, The Case, 34–6. 108. MRC, MSS.292D/116/8: Extract from General Council minutes, 23 July 1986. 109. MRC, MSS.292D/116/8: Fair wages strategy: national minimum wage, the EETPU response to the TUC consultative document, 21 May 1986. 110. MRC, MSS.292D/116/8: Extract from General Council minutes, 23 July 1986; MRC, MSS.292D/116/6: TUC Economic Committee, Low pay, 11 May 1983; MRC, MSS.292D/116/6: Public Services Committee, Low pay in the public services, 5 July 1983. 111. MRC, MSS.292D/116/8: Letter from the Engineers' and Managers' Association, 9 June 1986. 112. MRC, MSS.292D/116/8: Letter from the National Union of Tailor and Garment Workers, 1 July 1986. 113. Minkin, The Contentious, 430–1. 114. Ibid., 411. 115. See Dorey, Wage Politics, 222. 116. Ibid.; and Fraser, A History, 253. 117. See Metcalf, 'The British', 173. 118. On this, see Oude Nijhuis, 'Worker Solidarity', 296–329.
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