Pay Freezes

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Phil Tinline traces the ups and downs of the politics of pay in Britain since 1945.

With labour shortages and the cost of living leading the news for the first time in years, Phil Tinline traces the ups and downs of the politics of pay in Britain since 1945.

Labour shortages and the cost of living are leading the news for the first time in years. There are predictions that the biggest pay squeeze in decades is imminent. So in this new three-part series for BBC Radio 4, documentary-maker Phil Tinline traces the ups and downs of the politics of pay in Britain since 1945. How did we get here? And what can our history tell us about where we might now be heading?

Our way into this story is through British winters. When workers are powerless, winter puts them under greater pressure. When they have power, winter gives them greater bargaining leverage.

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Pay Freezes: From the Big Freeze to the Winter of Discontent

From the Big Freeze to the Winter of Discontent

BBC Radio 4 - Pay Freezes, From the Big Freeze to the Winter of Discontent

With labour shortages and the cost of living back as big issues for the first time in years, Phil Tinline traces the ups and downs of the politics of pay in Britain since 1945.

Labour shortages and the cost of living are back as big issues for the first time in years. 

There are predictions that the biggest pay squeeze in decades is imminent. 

So in this new three-part series for BBC Radio 4, documentary-maker Phil Tinline traces the ups and downs of the politics of pay in Britain since 1945. How did we get here? And what can our history tell us about where we might now be heading?

Our way into this story is through British winters. When workers are powerless, winter puts them under greater pressure. When they have power, winter gives them greater bargaining leverage. 

In this first episode, we head back to the big freeze of 1947, when energy and labour shortages were urgent issues. We discover how, as the government grappled with all this, and with inflation, post-war British politics began to be steered by a strange, half-forgotten notion: 'incomes policy'. Why did the state intervene to encourage unions to hold down pay demands, and businesses to hold down profits? And why did anyone co-operate?

Phil traces how this approach shaped the politics of pay for decades - and how it began to break down in the 1960s, even before the winter coal strikes of 1972 and 1974, and the advent of the 'Winter of Discontent'.

Alongside this, he draws on the BBC's archive to reconstruct the long struggle to equalise men and women's pay, from satirical protests outside Parliament in the 1950s, to the impact of the ground-breaking strike by sewing machinists at Ford's Dagenham plant in 1968.


Series contributors include: Kate Bell, Margaret Beckett, Neil Carberry, John Edmonds, Stuart Hill, Linda Hoffman, Gavin Kelly, Tara Martin Lopez, Lucy Neville-Rolfe, Rain Newton-Smith, Michael Portillo, Dominic Sandbrook, Stefan Stern, Selina Todd, Norman Tebbit, Nick Timothy

Producer/ Presenter: Phil Tinline

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Pay Freezes

From the Big Freeze to the Winter of Discontent

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