The Fifth Estate - 9781138334557

Taylor & Francis

The Fifth EstateBritain's Unions in the Seventies\nAuthor(s): Robert Taylor\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd, United Kingdom\nImprint: Routledge\nISBN-13: 9781138334557, 978-1138334557\nSynopsis\nFirst published in 1978. Britains unions were blamed by many people for the countrys post-war economic decline. Portrayed as greedy wreckers who wanted to run the country, they had become scapegoats for the state of the nation. This anatomy of Britains diverse and complex trade union movement sets out to question that widespread opinion. \n\nThe main argument advanced in the study is that unions in Britain were too weak, not too strong. From the 1940s until the 1970s, Robert Taylor believes, they had failed to achieve the constructive influence over British society that union movements elsewhere in western Europe had managed to gain. Considering the major and medium-sized unions separately, he examines the sudden and rapid growth of unionisation in Britain, the structu.