Technical Workers and Trade Unionism: TASS in the Post-War Period

Abstract

Two areas of research have dominated the post-war interest in white-collar unionism: the quantitative issue of union growth and the qualitative question of union character. Why white-collar workers join collective employment associations has largely been studied by focusing on objective variables such as employment concentration, the decline in staff status, collectivisation of employment relations and the policies of employers and the state. The issue of union character has centred on the differences and similarities between manual and white-collar unionism. On both issues there is a division in the literature between what has widely been called the industrial relations orthodoxy and the social stratification perspective (Crompton, 1976; Carter, 1979; Armstrong, 1986). The former has sought to deny the association between changes in the class structure and unionisation, while stressing the similarity of ‘goals and methods’ of manual and white-collar unions. The social stratification literature, although divided between various Weberian and Marxist positions, has exhibited a degree of unity in emphasising a ‘relationship’ between changes in the class structure and the issue of unionisation.