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The British Trade Unions "IN SPITE OF THEIR EFFORTS, WHEN GULLIVER AWOKE, HE SNAPPED THEIR CHAINS WITH EASE". the giant awakens!
BY PETER TAAFFE "There is no power in the world which could for a day resist the British working class organised as a body."
Thus wrote Frederick Engels 92 years ago in an article dealing with the British unions. Yet there is nothing more 'modern', nothing which more effectively sums up the situation in Britain today, than these lines from Engels.
In the stormy events of the past three years, over and over again the enormous latent power of the Trade Unions and Labour Movement has been confirmed. been merely required to flex its muscles to overturn one plank after another in the 'counter revolution' outlined by the Tories when they came to power. By comparison the retreat of Napoleon from Moscow was orderly !
This is most graphically illustrated by the short but spectacular history of the Industrial Relations Act.
The very introduction of this Act was a reflection of the fact the class balance of forces were weighted overwhelmingly in favour of the working that class. The capitalists looked towards the State to "redistribute the balance of bargaining 2
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