The Labour Party and the trade unions

Abstract

The general election of October 1964 brought the Labour Party back to power with an overall majority of five after thirteen years of opposition. The previous month the party leader, Harold Wilson, had made a powerful speech at the Trades Union Congress in which he stated that a Labour government and the unions would be ‘partners in a great adventure’. Many trade unionists needed little convincing that incomes policy was a price worth paying for the social and economic benefits that would follow from price control and a ‘forward’ social policy. Labour leaders had felt able to deal with trade union and industrial relations policy by reference to union leaders. The impression that this kind of dealing worked had probably reached its peak during the 1950s. In the aftermath of defeat, leaders and members began to differ more and more on the question of trade union policy.