This official history of NUPE from 1928 to 1993 (when it merged with COHSE and NALGO to form UNISON) deserves to be a standard reference book for those interested in the evolution of modern unions, particularly in the public services. It is comprehensively researched, although mainly from the written records, rather than tapping into the rich vein of oral history; and for those of us who were members of NUPE (as I proudly was between 1979 and 1981) it does capture the ethos of the union.

The early years of the union were sometimes controversial, as NUPE sometimes came into conflict with other unions, but NUPE grew through grim,  unglamourous hard work with some of the lowest paid and most downtrodden manual workers, often working for public authorities in Tory run rural areas, and the union made a big effort to recruit road workers; countering employer prejudice that these men were inferior and undeserving.

Bryn Roberts was a general secretary of extraordinary personal talent, but was sometimes abrasive. He published an inflamatory book in 1961 The Price of TUC leadership which castigated the other unions in the most forthright terms, and effectively denounced the general unions for being an obstacle to advance towards socialism. Williams and Fryer make the point that Roberts was so focused on the issues of union structure, that he overlooked the significance of the TGWU moving to the left when Frank Cousins became General Secretary in 1956. As a result, Roberts was never elected to the General Council of the TUC, and up until the early 1970s NUPE was seen as a slightly eccentric and wayward organisation.

Despite this, or perhaps because of it, NUPE was extremely popular with its members; who were often the lowest paid and lowest status workers, and who enjoyed the attention that Bryn Roberts’s intransigence brought them. NUPE always embodied a crusading spirit of genuine indignation about the scandal of low pay, and the social stigma associated with the dirty but necessary public service jobs that its members worked in.

The sections relating to the years of the Social Contract are fascinating, telling the story from NUPE’s point of view. The Social Contract, based upon the Labour Party’s 1973 Programme was the high point of labourism, with the unions pledging wage restraint in exchange for government action to boost the social wage, tackle inequality, improve industrial democracy and increase state ownership and planning in favour of economic growth.

This book throws an interesting spotlight on the differences between the unions in response to the government’s retreat away from their commitments under the social contract. NUPE’s dedicated focus only on public service workers led to it making sectional arguments against the cuts, causing some anger among the leaders of other unions who emphasised the need for productive investment in manufacturing to boost growth and jobs. While the political arguments against wage restraint were often carried by unions with some muscle in engineering like TASS; NUPE was instrumental in creating an alliance of public service unions that campaigned against both cutbacks and low pay.

This book is extremely useful in explaining the Winter of Discontent, from NUPE’s point of view; and also for recounting the history of how militancy grew in the NHS in particular as an assertion by low status workers of their demand for dignity and respect.

* You can order the book here