Stitt on Howell, _Trade Unionism and the State: The Construction of Industrial Relations Institutions in Britain, 1890-2000_

[Book Reviews in Economic and Business History]

Published by EH.NET (January 2009)

Chris Howell, _Trade Unionism and the State: The Construction of 
Industrial Relations Institutions in Britain, 1890-2000_.  Princeton, 
NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005. xi + 243 pp. $39.50 (cloth), ISBN: 
0-69101-2106-0.

Reviewed for EH.NET by James W. Stitt, Professor of History, High Point 
University.


Organized labor has played a seminal role in modern British political 
and industrial history.  Famous strikes, such as the General Strike of 
1926, and famous periods of strikes, such as those before World War I or 
of the 1970s, form a crucial backdrop to comprehension of twentieth 
century history.

This convenient assumption about the constancy of labor’s powerful role 
in British society and its relevance to the understanding of British 
politics and industrial history in the twentieth century is shattered by 
events after 1979.  The influence of labor, perhaps reaching a high 
point in the 1960s and 1970s, ended, or seemed to end, quickly with 
Margaret Thatcher’s election.  Was this decline in influence permanent 
or temporary?  If permanent, what can possibly explain how an 
institution as vital and potent as British organized labor could lose 
its status and authority so quickly?

Chris Howell, Professor of Politics at Oberlin College, finds 
traditional explanations of how British industrial relations operate 
inadequate to address the change of events after 1979.  In his _Trade 
Unionism and the State: The Construction of Industrial Relations in 
Britain, 1890-2000_, Howell contends that the framework heretofore 
common in studies of British industrial relations with an emphasis on 
voluntarism and a state inclined to abstain from intervention into the 
interactions of organized labor and employers is not sufficient to 
explain labor’s rapid decline in influence after 1979.  Other factors 
special to the 1980s alone cannot explain the decline in labor’s role 
either, according to Howell.  He posits both a new interpretation and a 
refined approach to the study of modern British industrial relations. 
Howell claims that one can comprehend the reduced role of labor after 
1979 by understanding first that the state was not an abstaining entity 
but, instead, “played a central role in the construction of industrial 
relations in Britain in the last hundred years or so.”  Howell believes 
that critical study of twentieth century British industrial relations 
must consider the state as the fulcrum, not as an impartial observer.

Howell defends his interpretation in a concise book.  He divides the 
entire period from the late nineteenth century to the present into three 
parts.  Each, he believes, reveals both a distinct period of British 
industrial relations but also different, but vital, activities by the 
state.  The first period begins in the earliest part of the twentieth 
century and continues through World War II and it revolves around the 
crisis in Britain’s staple industries.  During this portion, the state 
sought to bring labor and management together in industry-wide 
collective bargaining to limit strike action and to reduce competition 
among companies.  Actions of government bureaus, civil servants, and 
politicians all played a key role in the events of this era.

The second part began after World War II and continued through the 
1970s.  It featured decentralization of industrial relations to the firm 
or shop level and an expansion of topics falling under the carapace of 
labor-management negotiations.  This change came, Howell contends, 
because of alterations in the makeup of British industry featuring more 
attention to productivity and worker wages.  The activity of the state 
was to “accelerate changes in industrial relations practices that were 
occurring naturally, and to spread those changes from a few advanced 
sectors to the rest of the economy.”

The third part in Howell’s assessment begins in 1979.  The factors of 
consequence to industrial relations for this era include the reduction 
of the percentage of industrial workers in the workforce, the need for 
greater worker flexibility in the shop to accommodate global competition 
and technological change, and, most significantly, the coming into 
office of Margaret Thatcher in 1979.  “After 1979 the British state 
encouraged a sharp break with, and a reversal of, an established set of 
industrial relations institutions and practices.  It sought ... to 
weaken trade unionism and encourage unilateral managerial regulation of 
the workplace, and the individualization of industrial relations.  For 
this reason, the role of the state was more significant, more direct, 
and more coercive.”

Howell’s coherent overview of the period features a clear thesis, often 
reiterated.  The reader never loses contact with how the particulars of 
a given topic tie into the thesis.  Howell writes directly and clearly. 
  He integrates into his study the concepts of many authors and his 
research is current.

The orientation of Howell’s work is to look back over the last hundred 
years or so from the perspective of the last twenty-five years.  He 
believes that the powerful role of the state after 1979 must reflect its 
role before 1979.  This formula is both the strength and weakness of the 
book.  It provides strength for it connects together diverse events with 
idiosyncratic features to create a compelling pattern in support of the 
thesis.  One has a sense that Howell has found the key to unlock the 
intricacies of modern British industrial relations through his emphasis 
on the role of the state.  Its weakness is that Howell is somewhat 
selective in the topics addressed and the features of those topics used 
in the creation of his argument.  For example, a bit more subtlety would 
be helpful in how he uses the concept of state.  At times, but not 
uniformly, politicians, civil servants, government bureaus, and 
political parties seem to be used interchangeably to represent the 
state.  More nuance as to the difference between pronouncements of a 
sitting government and the actions of civil servants, for example, could 
strengthen the perceived connections he defends.  Perhaps Howell could 
have provided more consistent attention to public opinion and voting 
patterns to help the reader understand the motives and options of 
sitting governments.

Howell has created a work of merit and it deserves the attention and 
respect of students of the British industrial relations.


James W. Stitt is the author of _Joint Industrial Councils in British 
History: Inception, Adoption and Utilization, 1917-1939_ (Praeger, 2006).

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