Trade Union Officers, by H.A. Clegg

[p023] Trade Union Officers: A Study of Full-Time Officers, Branch Secretaries and Shop Stewards. By H. A. Clegg, A. J. Killick and Rex Adams. Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 32s. 6d. Mr. Clegg and his assistants have done a useful job of research, within very considerable limits, The limits are imposed by the approach, which is empirical to the nth degree. Capitalism exists and the workers have developed organizations to serve their interests within its framework. The organizations have, of necessity, become staffed with full-time officers. In other words the forces _ It is rare enough indeed 101 Book Reviews Their number is estimated at around 2,500, servicing some 93 million trade unionists. How well do they function as officers? Is their quality rising or falling? Are the problems of recruit- ment, staffing and training being satisfactorily dealt with? Some of the results of this survey are interesting and one or two are important. As a by-product, a new and useful method of classifying trade unions emerges. The tradi- tional classification into craft unions (like the ASW), industrial unions (NUM) and general unions (TGWU) has long been recognized as unsatis- factory. The authors have developed their own system of classification into five types: General, Single-Industry, Skilled, Ex-Craft (AEU, AUBTW, ETU, etc.) and White Collar. This is certainly an improvement and can - be useful for future analyses and dis- cussions on the complex structure of British trade unionism. Of more doubtful value is the authors’ attempt to compare the quality of officers in four different unions—the TGWU, AEU, NUGMW and ETU. It occurred to them that ‘personnel officers were the largest group who come into frequent con- tact with union officers’, so they sent them a questionnaire. The results, which might have been anticipated, showed no perceptible difference between the first three unions, while the fourth came comfortably bottom. Since the table of trade union growth rates, given by the authors in Appendix 6, shows the ETU as having increased in membership much more rapidly than the other three, this result shows nothing except political prejudice among per- sonnel officers, as one of them came near to admitting. Contrary to some current impres- sions, trade union officers are not

[p024] 102° under-paid, their salaries having in- creased by about the average for all salaries over the last 20 years— though salaries as a whole have increased less than wage rates and much less than earnings. The same is true of trade union staffs (number- ing about 4,000), though there are some very bad individual cases of under-payment and. the organization of trade union staffs for collective. bargaining is far from satisfactory. Another misleading impression which the authors’ findings refute is that, with increasing opportunities for workers to rise into the salaried group, the educational level of trade union officers must decline. In fact it 1s rising, the proportion of grammar school products being higher in the lower age groups, particularly among the under 40s. The number of shop stewards in Britain is probably about 90,000, and though this is a rough estimate, the number given by. the TUC in its 1960 Report as 200,000 is clearly an over-estimate. “There is a lot of information of. this’ kind, much of it quite new. The authors do not draw, and do not want to draw, any far-reaching con- clusions. ‘They are satisfied to have done a thoroughly competent job of systematic fact-gathering. H.C. Wesleyans and others