F Trades Union Congress (T.U.C.) - 1868

F Confederation of British Industry (C.B.I.) - 1965

F The Labour Party - 1899 (1945-1951; 1964-1970; 1974-1979; 1997-)

F The Conservative Party (1951-1964; 1970-1974; 1979-1997)

GENERAL

F The employers recognized union legitimacy early on

F The unions never signed any national agreement, similar to the Swedish Basic Agreement (1938) or the German Stinnes-Legien agreement (1918),with the employers

F The unions had not posed a threat to the employers who, therefore, created their national organization (C.B.I.) only in 1965 (Sweden [S.A.F.]-1902; Germany [B.D.A.]- 1885)

F Voluntarism - the IR/HRM system should be self governing and government intervention should be kept to a minimum

The Post-W.W. II Era and The Erosion of Voluntarism

F A state of full employment until the mid-1970s

F A wave of unofficial strikes headed by shop stewards

F The Donovan Commission (1968) - England has two IR systems

F The government's white paper In Place Of Strife (1969) is rejected by the unions

F Industrial Relations Act - 1971

F Trade Union and Labor Relations Act - 1974

F The Social Contract - 1974-76

F The Winter of Discontent - 1979

F Employment Act - 1980, 1982, 1988, 1990

F Trade Union Act - 1984, 1993

F Tony Blair and the New Labor - 1997 to Present (scroll to bottom of page)

F Tony Blair and the Labor Party win a third majority government for the first time in history - May 5, 2005

F June 26, 2007 - Gordon Brown (Labor) takes over from Tony Blair