The Trade Union Response

Abstract

Contract service firms played an important role in bringing competitive tendering to the political agenda, but no more significant than that played by the trade unions. Without the industrial action of the 1970s and early 1980s, the policy of compulsory tendering would not have become nearly so popular within the Conservative Party; without the sustained campaign of union opposition to the policy, the entire exercise would not have received nearly so much media attention or aroused quite so much controversy as it has over the past two years. Far from being seen as one of many costsaving management initiatives put forward by the Government, the tendering policy has come to be viewed as a direct attack upon trade union power.