In Place of Strife Labour History Debate
November 12, 2003

"In Place of Strife did contain the ingredients of a programme that, if it had been possible for it to succeed, then not only would the 1970 election result have been different, but we would not have had Thatcherism"

In April 1968 Harold Wilson moved Barbara Castle from the Department of Transport, where she had been the minister who introduced seatbelts and the breathalyser, to the Department of Employment and Productivity. There, her actions would have no lesser impact on British society, but certainly not in the way she would have hoped.

The effect of her white paper In Place of Strife and the reasons behind its proposals were the subject of a Labour History Group discussion in November 2003. Barbara Castle's biographer Anne Perkins, the veteran industrial and political journalist Geoffrey Goodman and Richard Rosser, then General Secretary of the TSSA were the panellists.

Geoffrey Goodman set the scene: 'The 1966 election was the most significant Labour victory since 1945. Harold Wilson had great hopes and Labour had a very close and mutually understanding relationship with the unions. But then there was the usual economic crisis and the industrial climate became full of tension.'

Wilson's government had become plagued by unofficial strikes, the public was turning against the trades unions and the traditional relationship between the Labour Party and the unions was starting to break down. As Richard Rosser explained: 'The Trade Union movement were beginning to find out that the attitudes of a Labour government were not necessarily their own.'

Goodman offered an example of Wilson's increasing frustration with the unions: 'Harold went to an AEU national committee meeting and told them to throw away their rulebook. That was quite equivalent to Tony Blair abandoning Clause IV and that alerted the trade unions to what they might have to face.'

Ray Gunter at the Department of Labour had instigated a Royal Commission under Lord Donovan in 1965 to investigate the changing role of trade unions in society and the economy. But Gunter's replacement by Barbara Castle in 1968 was widely seen as signifying his failure. She was famously combative, and, as Anne Perkins pointed out, 'Wilson put Barbara into the Department of Employment to signal a determination to act'.

Castle's job was to broker a new understanding with the unions, but also to bring them to heel. And so In Place of Strife, a white paper supposedly in response to Lord Donovan's proposals, was born.

In fact, where Donovan had recommended reform of the union system rather than legal curbs on unofficial strikes, In Place of Strife aimed to restrict the power of unions with a raft of measures including: secret ballots before every strike; a cooling off period of 28 days before big strikes; collective bargaining with legally binding results; a new Industrial Relations Court and penal sanctions to force unions to comply.

Predictably, the unions were extremely hostile. Furthermore, it is probable that Castle's combative approach did little to cool tempers. But as Richard Rosser pointed out 'there was opposition virtually across the labour movement. Fifty-five Labour MPs voted against and another forty abstained . . . and the Labour Party NEC also voted against the policy by sixteen votes to five.'

There was also opposition in Cabinet - led by Jim Callaghan who vehemently opposed state regulation of the unions. After a vicious battle in Cabinet and Parliament, in the Party and the country, Castle was defeated. Richard Rosser explained: 'The bill was dropped, the deal was that the TUC would encourage union mergers and play a positive role in resolving disputes. I don't think that too many people were taken in by that or regarded it as any more than a fudge by a government that was backing down.'

As Anne Perkins said: 'In Place of Strife now stands as a metaphor for failure in government Wilson and Barbara had not thought through what they were trying to achieve. But it had asked the question which lay at the heart of the post-war settlement, it asked "did trade unions still believe in and were prepared to promote social cohesion?"'

Castle's career looked to be over, but it is a testament to the spirit of this remarkable politician that she fought back to establish the Equal Pay Act in 1970 and took a Cabinet place as Secretary of State for Health and Social Services in Wilson's government from 1974 until 1976. Her Cabinet career was only brought to an end by the ascension of her archenemy Callaghan to the premiership.

A Sunday Times column at of the times of In Place of Strife hinted at the legacy of its failure: 'Conservatives are wise to give the white paper - which owes so much to their prompting their general support for it lays foundations on which they can build.'

Geoffrey Goodman made the point explicitly: 'In Place of Strife did contain the ingredients of a programme that, if it had been possible for it to succeed, then not only would the 1970 election result have been different, but we would not have had Thatcherism.'

Thatcher's reforms decimated union membership and changed the attitude of the British public and, indeed, the Labour Party, to trade unions. Richard Rosser explained: 'This government has an attitude and a feeling that the trades union movement is one section of society that has a particular view, but as a government it has to take account the electorate as a whole if it is going to survive.'

Summary by John Schwartz, the editor of Labour History.