Dorey, Peter  ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2763-1622
2025.
Thatcher and trade unions.
Norton, Philip and Beech, Matt, eds.
Elgar Companion to Margaret Thatcher,
Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd,
pp. 104-121.
(10.4337/9781035345311.00014)
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Abstract
To her supporters, weakening the trade unions was one of Margaret Thatcher's major policy successes. Whereas previous post-1945 Conservative prime ministers had sought to accommodate trade union strength by incorporating unions into elite-level decision-taking and determining wages via incomes policies, in the hope of containing the unions’ power, Thatcher was determined irrevocably to weaken the unions via a combination of statutory curbs, granting their members greater authority over supposedly more militant or left-wing union leaders, increasing the authority of employers, eschewing incomes policies and thereby depoliticising decisions which ought to be taken solely on commercial or economic grounds. Through such objectives, Thatcher's governments replaced collectivism with individualism, reinstated management's right to manage in the workplace, ensured that wages were determined by ‘the market’ or affordability rather than political factors or notions of social justice, excluded union leaders from the corridors of power and enthusiastically promoted labour market flexibility.
| Item Type: | Book Section |
|---|---|
| Date Type: | Publication |
| Status: | Published |
| Schools: | Schools > Cardiff Law & Politics Schools > Department of Politics and International Relations (POLIR) |
| Publisher: | Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd |
| ISBN: | 9781035345304 |
| Related URLs: | |
| Last Modified: | 16 Mar 2026 15:36 |
| URI: | https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/181322 |
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