British Labor's 'Legend of Power':

...Representation on Government advisory committees has turned out to be ineffective because union leaders simply don't have the time to fulfill their responsibilities on them...

...It is undeniable that, in a legislated economy, many measures not ostensibly dealing with union affairs can powerfully affect members' interests...

...Strikes to exert political pressure violate the unions' own acceptance of parliamentary democracy...

...The unions have resisted applying as much pressure as they could in order to avoid embarrassing the Labor party by making it concede— a situation reminiscent of the 1926 general strike, when the unions accepted unconditional defeat rather than face the terrible risk of winning...

...Party pressure has had disappointing results because both the Labor party and the unions quickly realized that obvious domination by the unions would cost Labor dearly among its broader constituencies...

...Even union leaders have tended, on becoming Government Ministers, to suppress their sectional loyalties and consider national issues...

...The unions' influence on the British Government has remained primarily determined by their economic strength at any particular moment...

...First, the problems of the Government in filling a dual role as the nation's largest single employer after nationalization, and at the same time acting as impartial guardian of the public interest...

...The answer is that the unions must become political in a broader sense than they now are...

...But they use different methods of analysis, answer different questions and come to contrasting conclusions...

...If they were, the Government would automatically win...

...Since the Government inevitably refuses to accept completely the responsibilities of its role as an employer, it will try to treat any strike against it as a threat to its political authority...

...Macdonald's book only skims the surface of history, searching for incidents and trends that support the author's thesis that the unions have too much power...

...American unions face the same problem in its broadest aspect...

...Socialism is waning in the West as class divisions melt under the glow of prosperity and economic interests become less fervent for the majority of workers...

...Two major themes of recent labor movement history in Britain stand out in Allen's richly detailed survey...

...199 pp...

...If a union wants to strike against the Government, then, it must convince the public that the strike is confined to industrial issues by foregoing the kind of mass action affecting the entire nation which is traditionally considered labor's most powerful weapon...

...In fact, Allen shows that every method of exerting political power has presented peculiar difficulties for the unions...

...They must rely less on collective bargaining and more on achieving improvements in the whole society by exerting influence on Government social and fiscal policies...

...Strikes against the Government get major attention in the book, and Allen amasses convincing evidence to show that such strikes are far from conventional economic battles between workers and employers...

...Allen concludes that, for such a large and highly organized movement, labor has had and continues to have a surprisingly limited influence on Government policy...

...The issues raised by these two books are immediate and pressing for the British, and by implication for us...

...How shall unions achieve that political power which they must have in such a society...

...Here he finds that having its party in power has not added notably to the trade unions' political influence, for there have been serious practical difficulties...

...Rather than indulging in mere negative reactions to restrictive legislation, such as Taft-Hartley and last year's Reporting and Disclosure Act, unions must undertake political action that will enlist the support of a broad public...

...V. L. Allen, a sympathetic student of power and leadership in British unions, has written a definitive historical study which examines what kind of contact there has been between unions and the Government...

...One of his chief recommendations is increased independence from the trade union movement which has become dominated by extremely left-wing leaders like Frank Cousins of the Transport Workers...

...D. F. Macdonald, who for 12 years was chief executive of a national federation of employers, has written a much less ambitious book which is really only a commentary on the history that Allen has documented and reconstructed...

...The Labor party is beginning to feel the adverse effects of its trade union affiliations...

...In this policy he feels the Government has avoided its responsibility to control the unions by limiting their powers...

...Second, Allen bears down for a detailed examination of the special relationships which have developed between trade unions and the Labor Governments since 1924...

...The question that interests him is how much influence the unions have had on British government...

...The Labor party is engaged in a fierce ideological struggle, and C. A. R. Crosland, Hugh Gaitskell's closest adviser, has argued in these pages for a transformation of the party to remedy its "bad image" in the public mind...

...Since the disintegration of complete state control over both workers and employers in Tudor times—a system to· which Macdonald looks back with considerable nostalgia—the British Government's policy has been, in his interpretation, to have as little as possible to do with the trade unions...

...4.50...

...By combining precise day-to-day, frequently hour-by-hour, accounts of the most significant encounters, with an experienced background from which to draw inferences and generalizations, he produces an indispensable survey of how and why unions and the Government have come together...

...Their main benefits from having Labor in power have been the result of the broad agreement on social aims and priorities worked out with the party before it won power...

...He describes a "legend of power" which corresponds remarkably with the "myth of labor's power" in this country, recently analyzed in these pages by James Kuhn (September 19...

...By working for such objectives as tax reductions for lower-income groups, Government fiscal policies to stimulate the growth of our public sector services, a realistic approach to the problem of a national wage policy and strategic economic planning to meet the automation panic— by working for such ends the trade union movement can protect the future of its members by drawing political strength from other large progressive groups in the country...

...For Macdonald, "pure-and-simple" protection of the job is the legitimate function of unions, and to him the history of British trade unionism is a story of power achieved and abused through the unions' extending themselves into other areas of activity...

...Martin's...

...Thus the main advantages of the close relationship have gone to the Labor Governments...

...Reviewed by Ronald Gross Contributor, "Commentary" "Talisman" Both these books claim to cover the same subject: the changing relationship of trade unions to the central Government of Britain...

...Britain seems to be moving closer to the American pattern, in which a political party must appeal to a wider public than any one class or organized segment in order to succeed...

...But these struggles are decided by one factor above all others: the attitude of the public toward the strike...

...Naturally, he looks with favor on compulsory arbitration, wage determination and protection of the "right to work...