from Problems of Capitalism & Socialism, No. 1. February/March 2008
Introduction
Jack Jones
The great power of the trade unions and sympathetic Governments in the late 1960s and the 1970s provided an opportunity for the working class in Britain to start becoming the ruling class. These conditions were the result of the social and economic reforms introduced by Clement Attlee and Ernest Bevin following the Second World War. The Government was prepared to admit the unions as equal partners in planning the economy. The Bullock Committee, on which I had the privilage to sit, was set up under terms of reference devised by the Trades Union Congress and recommended a parity of power between employers and unions on the Boards of large private companies. Another committee was set up by civil servants to deal similarly with the public sector.
The opportunities offered were un-fortunately not taken up in the wider union movement and Britain moved in a Thatcherite direction. This all happened over thirty years ago. A whole generation does not know about these things or about the world as it was at this time.
I am glad therefore that two of the workers’ control activists of the time, Joe Keenan and Conor Lynch are publishing an account of these times and these events as a series in their magazine Problems of Capitalism & Socialism. I am also pleased that most of the material will be in the form of reprinting journals, pamphlets, and articles from that era. This will not only inform this generation but to some extent help it to experience the arguments, the controversies and the atmosphere of that period.
Jack Jones, January 2008