3

Trade Unions and Political

Parties

The Party-Union Relationship

The party-union relationship sprang from the political weakness

of unions. As unions were outside the established power structure
it was unlikely they would find allies amongst the established
parties, though there were exceptions such as the alliance of some
British unions with the Liberal Party in the late nineteenth
century. As outsider groups they were drawn to outsider parties
who made union concerns central to their appeal and who tended
to be socialist. The link between unions and socialism (or in the
case of American unions, with state intervention) was a reflection
of the wish to restructure political and economic power in favour
of outsider interests. In parliamentary democracies 'socialism'
meant reformism not revolution, unions supported particular
parties so as to influence them in government and secure
concessions. Outsider parties welcomed union support, seeing in
the unions a valuable source of finance, votes and organisation to
support their electoral take-off. So the relationship was seen as
mutually beneficial to two outsider groups striving for access to the
political process.
The ideological range embraced by the party-union relationship
is relatively narrow. The British, German, Swedish and Japanese
relationship is founded on 'socialism', and in all (except the British)
marxism has played a crucial role historically. Electoral politics
and fear of exclusion from government prompted the abandon-
ment of marxism in Sweden and Germany, and this is currently
taking place in Japan. The socialist strain in American unions has

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A. J. Taylor, Trade Unions and Politics
© Andrew Taylor 1989
48 Trade Unions and Politics

been submerged by other influences, notably the heterogeneity of

the workforce and the hostility of the political system, though
unions have sought, via the Democratic Party, reforms similar to
those in the other states. The ideological relationship can be
characterised as social democratic, defined as a reformist and
non-marxist left-of-centre ideology which is sometimes only
marginally different from moderate conservatism. Social democracy
implies a degree of public control over private economic power but
not the rejection of private property, a considerable degree of public
provision of services such as health, education and welfare, a redis-
tributive taxation system to promote social justice, and a political
process based on the involvement of producer groups (especially
employers and unions) with government to produce and sustain a
national consensus. The political process itself remains based on
group pluralism, parliamentarianism and electoral competition.
It has been suggested that the party-union relationship is
profoundly influenced by the relationship at the time of its emerg-
ence. Put simply, if the unions were instrumental in founding the
party then they will have proportionately more influence over it.
In fact, this is borne out only by the British experience, where the
Labour Party emerged from a decision of the TUC in 1899. In
Sweden, the reverse applies. Here the SAP acted as a surrogate
union federation until the founding of the LO. In Germany the
pre-1933 relationship was akin to the British experience but in the
remaking of the union movement and the party system after 1945
there was a conscious attempt at separation for electoral reasons,
though links do remain. The Japanese party-union relationship is
difficult to disentangle because mutual weakness and hostility from
government forced cooperation, but after 1945 the JSP and Sohyo
especially relied on each other, to the extent that the former came
to be seen as an extension of the latter. In the USA the two-party
system preceded the founding of the AFL and a majority of
members supported the Republican Party. The AFL sought to
avoid a partisan commitment (Republican or Democrat) and, as
with so many aspects of modern American politics, the party-
union relationship dates from the New Deal era. The Democrats
and the unions were drawn to each other out of mutual self-interest
but both brought to the relationship long established political
traditions which makes their relationship an amalgam of British and
West German practice: an intimate but arm's length relationship. In