Adaptation, evolution and survival? The political economy of Whitleyism and public service industrial relations in the U.K. 1917–present

Abstract

The Whitley Reports, 1917–1918 were seen by contemporaries as conservative: they reflected pre-existing voluntaristic approaches to the labour problem rather than a radical departure. Largely neglected by the well-established private sector, for whom they were intended, Whitley Councils were taken up by the newly emerging public service unions. The interwar years demonstrated Whitleyism’s lack of clout. But, endorsed by governments during and after the Second World War, public sector Whitleyism came to embody the tenets of progressive public administration by providing nationally determined pay, career progression and a public service ethos. These hard-won union gains are under attack from neoliberal reforms that attempt to model public service labour relations on the private sector. The paper examines the major weaknesses and strengths of the Whitley model for managing public service industrial relations through an analysis of a century of Whitleyism.

Keywords:

• Public service unions
• collective bargaining
• new public management
• pay determination
• performance management
• Austerity

Acknowledgement

The author would like to thank staff at the following archives for their assistance: The Whitley Archive, University of Huddersfield, The Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick and the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. She would also like to thank John Whitley for reading and commenting on an earlier draft of this paper.

Notes

1. This model was composed roughly of the original differential strategies of manual and white-collar unions.

2. Foote, sees these as comprising Labour Marxists, for example, Thomas Mann and Hyndman; Fabians and Guild Socialists.

3. Button was ex-Executive member of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers.

4. This argument applied to the local government Whitley Committees set up in 1919.

5. Greenwood, handwritten notes/letter on the Leeds municipal strike of 1913, MS.Eng.C.6175, fol.30: Bodleain Library.

6. The Whitley Report (1917), para. 15, enumerates the suggested functions to be covered by the committees and para. 15(iv) points out ‘the need for regular methods of negotiation … with a view to prevention of differences.’

7. Bodleain Library, MS.Eng.c.6216.fol.37. War Cabinet. Committee of Reconstruction Problems, 1941.

8. MRC (Modern Records Centre), MSS.372/MNL/1/1 NJIC minutes for non-trading services, 1919.

9. MRC,MSS.20/NAL/4/1/11: Municipal Officer, Feb 1919

10. MRC, MSS.20/NAL/4/1/11: Municipal Officer, Jan. 1916, 3–5.

11. MRC, MSS.20/NAL/4/1/11: quotation from Beatrice Webb in Municipal Officer , Jan. 1916.

12. MSS.20/NAL/4/1/11: Municipal Officer Nov. 1919 notes the request to the Minister of Health to bring up in parliament the issue of the refusal of a war bonus scale by Colne corporation.

13. Bodleian, MS. Eng. c. 6175, Daily Courier, 26.12.13.

14. Bodleian, MS. Eng. c. 6175, Yorkshire Post, 27.12. 13.

15. Bodleian, MS. Eng. c. 6216, Greenwood memorandum on ‘The Labour Party and the Future’, (undated).

16. Bodleian, MS. Eng. c. 6243, fol. 45,Memo to Reconstruction Committee, The War of Ideas, Feb 1941.

17. Bodleian, MS. Eng. c. 6243, Somerville Hastings, ‘From Panel to Public Service’, 1940, Lancet, Feb. 24, p375; Beveridge Report.

18. MRC, MSS.372/MNL/1/6, NJIC, Non-trading services, Nov. 1945, para. 4.

19. Ibid., Jan. 1946.

20. MRC, MSS.20/NAL/4/1/11: Municipal Officer, Jan. 1916, 3–5; See Gill-McLure, ‘The Political Economy’ for a treatment of Mills, Cole, Tawney on the distinctiveness of public service administration.

21. Bodleian, MS. Eng. c.6186, fol.32–3: Letter from Ministry of Labour to Employers and Unions, 20th October, 1917 ;Bodleian, MS. Eng. c. 6243, fol. 45,Memo to Reconstruction Committee, The War of Ideas, Feb 1941.

22. Bodleian, MS. Eng. c. 6186, fols, 35–37:Sub-committee of the inter-departmental committee on the application of the Whitley Report to Government establishments, Report on The application of the Whitley Report to the Administrative Departments of the Civil Service’, 1919, Special Collections,. Bodleian Library, Oxford University Library Services).