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18 Indus. L.J. 1 (1989)
Freedom of Association and Philosophies of Labour Law

handle is hein.journals/indlj18 and id is 15 raw text is: Freedom of Association and Philosophies of Labour Law* By Lord Wedderburn** THE United Kingdom has never had to face that chasm between public and private law which for long denied State and other public servants in so many other countries a place in the realm of collective bargaining. No Beamte (still without a right to strike) no fonctionnaires or agents publics placed under special restriction, no need of special laws, like those in Sweden, 1965, or Italy, 1983, to bring the municipal and State official imperfectly into collective labour law, no claim by the State that its sovereignty is infringed by collective bargaining, found even in the United States.' Administrative discipline is of course exercised over such employees, not least in the civil service; but subject to the legal rule that the Crown may dismiss at pleasure, that merely parallels the private employer's power to legislate for his workplace-subject to broadly the same laws and, above all, to the power of the employees' collective intervention through a trade union. This unique history, consequential upon the perceptive decision of a frightened ruling class in 1917 to follow the path advocated by the Whitley Committee towards collective consultation in the public sector, and therefore inevitably towards collective bargaining, has made developments in the labour law of the public sector of central importance. Indeed, the attitude of government in Britain towards public sector industrial relations is, in many ways, a touchstone of its labour law policies. What, then, is the historical significance of GCHQ? Civil servants employed there to work on secret spy communications had long been permitted, indeed encouraged, to join autonomous, national trade unions. There was a well-established practice of - Based on the GCHQ Lecture for 1988 given at the invitation of the First Division Association of Civil Servants, February 29, 1988. ** FBA, Professor of Commercial Law, L.S.E. On public servants in labour law see, G. Camerlynck, G. Lyon-Caen, J. Pelissier Droit du Travail (13th ed., 1986) pp.976 et seq.; G. Ghezzi and U. Romagnoli 11 diritto sindacale (2nd ed., 1987) pp.190, 291 et seq.; W. Ddubler Arbeitskampfrecht (2nd ed., 1987) pp.466 et seq.; Folke Schmidt Law and Industrial Relations in Sweden (1977) pp.97, 178 et seq.; B. Hepple Chap.VII in Wedderburn and W. T. Murphy (eds.) Labour Law and the Community (1982); H. Edwards, R. Clarke, C. Craver, Labor Relations in the Public Sector (1979, on sovereignty pp.23-43); T. Schooley (1987) lnd.Rels. Law Jo. 283 (public sector right to strike in the United States); B. Hepple and P. O'Higgins Public Employee Trade Unionism in the U.K., The Legal Background (1971); Wedderburn Chap.6 in B. Aaron and Wedderburn (eds.) Industrial Conflict; A Comparative Legal Survey (1972); G. Morris Strikes in Essential Services (1986); H. Hughes The Settlement of Disputes in the Public Service (1968) Pub.Admin. 45.

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