A Study On The Relationship Between The Labour Party And The Trade Unions Of Britain In The Perspective Of Corporatism(1994-2010)

All along, the corporatism as a theory framework for research the relationshipbetween state/political party and society was come from political practice in WesternEurope and it had influenced the relationship of political party and society. It’snecessary to research the relationship between the British Labour Party and the tradeunions in the perspective of corporatism. From a historical point of view, the BritishLabour Party was set up by the unions and lived in the shadow of the trade unionsearly with policy-making constraints. But during the hundred-year time, successiveleaders of Labour Party had taken varying degrees of reform. Some tried to get rid ofthe restrictions from unions and others had strengthening ties with trade unions. Butthe trend is they gradually separate the Labour Party and the trade unions. Comparedto a hundred years ago, the Labour Party and the trade unions all have changed indifferent degrees. The Labour Party had changed to be a catch-all party and waschanging to a cartel party. Unions changed to an interests group representing varyingindustrial workers from a class organization only concerning on wages and benefitsof workers. Therefore, the relationship between the Labour Party and the tradeunions became the relationship between state and society. The relationship has been gradual clarity since Tony Blair became the leader of the Labour Party in1994.Through briefly looking back to the centenary history of the British Labour Partyand the trade unions, we can recall their origins. There were three important eventshappened in Blair period reflecting the changing balance of the relationship betweenthe Labour Party and trade unions, which is modifying the clause4, restoring theminimum wage rule and signing the European Social Charter. It’s necessary toresearch on the particular process of the three events. Under the conditions of a wellcomprehension of historical facts, this paper considers that there are three elementsof actors which had impact on the relationship between the Labour Party and thetrade unions, namely the Labour Party and its policies about trade unions, the tradeunions and its response to the Labour Party and other domestic and internationalactors’ attitude such as Conservative Party and the European Union. The main role isstill the Labour Party.In the perspective of corporatism, this paper summarized the relationship betweenthe British Labour Party and the trade unions as an equal consultative relationship.The equality is mainly reflected in three aspects which are the structure of relativelyequal footing, various types of consultation and the stable appropriate effects. Thismodel has its unique advantages but there are some problems, too. The most obviousconsequence is that the Labour Party has gone far away with the trade unions so theylost lots of loyal voters, bringing the Labour Party finally failed in the election of2010. It provides some lessons for other countries such as strengtheningorganizational cohesion to avoid the party abruption, establishing correct guidingideology to appeal voters and expanding more political identity with a solid massbase.