TULRA 1974 Documents

In opposition the Labour Party had joined with the TUC to establish the Trades Union Congress–Labour Party Liaison Committee (TUC–LP Liaison Committee), tasked with formulating a wide-ranging policy for government – the Social Contract. This included the repeal of the Industrial Relations Act 1971. As the TUC’s standing counsel, Bill Wedderburn led the discussions to replace the 1971 Act with a new statute to remodel the 1906 Act so as to eliminate the ambiguities and gaps seized upon by employers and their legal advisors, and accepted by the courts when formulating torts that restricted the 1906 Act’s protections for unions and workers taking industrial action. Of the many relevant documents in the papers of the Trades Union Congress and Lord Wedderburn (as Bill Wedderburn became in 1977) in the Modern Records Collection, University of Warwick, those written by Wedderburn and Brian Thompson are indicative of these debates, and of the potential impact of the Ethicon decision upon the Act’s scope (where Wedderburn’s fears proved prescient).