History & policy database

Trade Union and Employment Forum

This new forum aims to bring together academics, business groups, policy makers and the public interested in how understandings of historical trade relations can inform current policy debates. In so doing, it builds on History & Policy’s existing collaboration with the AHRC Imagining Markets network. Forthcoming events include policy workshops and public seminars focused on the connections between Britain’s historical trade relations and contemporary trade challenges such as the EU referendum. In collaboration with the Centre for Imperial and Global History at the University of Exeter, the forum will also publish opinion articles and policy papers on how economic history can inform international trade discussions of topical interest.

  • Apprentice training, youth organisation and trade unionism

    Professor Paul Ryan argued that British employers have been too prone to providing mediocre training and exploiting opportunities for cheap youth labour, while Lord Tony Young (then Minister for Skills and Apprenticeship) defended the quality of training offered by the Labour Government's Modern Apprentices Scheme.

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  • The Osborne Judgment of 1909

    Dr Jim Moher suggested that Walter Osborne's campaign in the 1900s shed important light on individual/collective tensions over the trade union political levy, while Tony Dubbins (Trade Unions for Labour) argued that the unions were still a popular voluntary force which were not treated with sufficient respect in reviews of party funding.

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  • ‘Trade Unions from the 1970s to the present’ and ‘Trade Union productivity and partnership, and the

    Professor Richard Whiting suggested that a generation of social change had made the struggles of the 1970s look like a 'medieval drama', while Professor Peter Ackers argued that partnership between management and unions was now the only alternative to a government-driven neo-liberal approach.

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Trade Union and Employment Forum Links

About Us

H&P is based at the Institute of Historical Research, Senate House, University of London.

We are the only project in the UK providing access to an international network of more than 500 historians with a broad range of expertise. H&P offers a range of resources for historians, policy makers and journalists.

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