National Association of Local Government Officers

The National and Local Government Officers Association was a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

trade union

Trade union

A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...

representing mostly local government

Local government

Local government refers collectively to administrative authorities over areas that are smaller than a state.The term is used to contrast with offices at nation-state level, which are referred to as the central government, national government, or federal government...

"white collar" workers. It was formed in 1905 as the National Association of Local Government Officers, and changed its full name in 1952 while retaining its widely-used acronym, NALGO. By the late 1970s it was the largest British union, with over 700,000 members. It was one of three unions which combined to form UNISON

UNISON

UNISON is the largest trade union in the United Kingdom with over 1.3 million members.The union was formed in 1993 when three public sector trade unions, the National and Local Government Officers Association , the National Union of Public Employees and the Confederation of Health Service...

in 1993.

Early history

The National Association of Local Government Officers or NALGO was founded in 1905 as an association of local guilds of municipal officers. The main impetus came from Herbert Blain (1870–1942), later to become national agent for the Conservative Party. Blain had formed the first local guild in Liverpool

Liverpool

Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

in 1896 and, on moving to London, arranged the national conference in 1905 at which NALGO was formed. In 1909, the first full-time General Secretary, Levi Hill (1883–1961), was appointed, and by 1914 NALGO’s membership included almost 70% of all British local government officers.

Blain and Hill organised NALGO with a national delegate conference and regional and local branch structures. Its first aims were the setting up of a pension scheme; the improvement of the pay, conditions and status of local government officers; the abolition of nepotism

Nepotism

Nepotism is favoritism granted to relatives regardless of merit. The word nepotism is from the Latin word nepos, nepotis , from which modern Romanian nepot and Italian nipote, "nephew" or "grandchild" are also descended....

(at the time rife in local government); and the welfare of members and their families.

In 1917, a parliamentary committee chaired by J.H.Whitley

John Henry Whitley

John Henry Whitley , often known as J. H. Whitley, was a respected and successful British politician whose life and career spanned a period of significant social change, from roots in the heart of the Industrial Revolution through to the inter-war period.- Family and early career :John Henry...

MP recommended setting up joint committees of employers and workers throughout industry for consultations on pay and working conditions, and in 1919 the first Whitley Council for local government was formed on NALGO’s insistence. After a prolonged process of negotiations, NALGO and the employers agreed a national charter of pay scales in local government in 1946.

Although Hill had previously remarked that "anything savouring of trade unionism is nausea to the local government officer", NALGO sought a certificate from the Registrar of Friendly Societies confirming its status as a trade union in 1920. Discussion on affiliation to the Trades Union Congress

Trades Union Congress

The Trades Union Congress is a national trade union centre, a federation of trade unions in the United Kingdom, representing the majority of trade unions...

began as early as 1921, however, it would take until 1964 to be agreed.

It amalgamated with various smaller unions including the National Association of Poor Law

Poor Law

The English Poor Laws were a system of poor relief which existed in England and Wales that developed out of late-medieval and Tudor-era laws before being codified in 1587–98...

Officers in 1930. Membership continued to grow rapidly, reaching some 100,000 by 1940.

Levi Hill retired as General Secretary in 1943, and was replaced by John Simonds.

National and Local

With the growth in membership in sectors outside local government such as health, gas and electricity, the union changed its full name in 1952, to the National and Local Government Officers' Association, while still retaining the acronym NALGO. It amalgamated with various smaller unions including the British Gas Staff Association in 1963. It reached 300,000 members by 1964. It finally became a TUC affiliate, after many years of fractious internal argument, in 1964.

As the public sector expanded in importance through the 1950s-70s, and British Government legislation such as the Industrial Relations Act 1971

Industrial Relations Act 1971

The Industrial Relations Act 1971 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, since repealed. It was largely based on proposals outlined in the governing Conservative Party's manifesto for the 1970 general election...

simultaneously sought to curb trade union powers, some parts of the union became more radicalised. NALGO organised its first official strike

Strike action

Strike action, also called labour strike, on strike, greve , or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became important during the industrial revolution, when mass labour became...

in Leeds in 1970, and its first national strike, of social workers, was in 1978/79. It also led the way as a campaigning organisation over equal pay and wider equality and international issues. Total membership rose to over 700,000 by 1977, by which time it was by far the largest UK public sector union.

After the election of the Thatcher

Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...

government in 1979, NALGO organised strongly in opposition to many of its policies, in particular privatisation, deregulation, and restructuring with the introduction of market mechanisms in local government, education, and the National Health Service

National Health Service

The National Health Service is the shared name of three of the four publicly funded healthcare systems in the United Kingdom. They provide a comprehensive range of health services, the vast majority of which are free at the point of use to residents of the United Kingdom...

.

At the same time, at local level in much of the country many members maintained the old idea of NALGO as a staff association, and this explains why many so-called "NALGO" social clubs, sports teams and so on remained popular. NALGO provided a wide range of benefits for its members, including one of the first holiday camps at Croyde

Croyde

Croyde is a village on the west-facing coastline of North Devon, England. The village lies on the South West Coast Path near to Baggy Point, which is owned by the National Trust. It lies within the North Devon Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty...

in north Devon and shortly afterwards a second, larger camp at Cayton Bay near Scarborough. (Cayton Bay was sold in 1976 but Croyde Bay is still owned and run by UNISON, NALGO's successor).

NALGO merged with NUPE (the National Union of Public Employees

National Union of Public Employees

The National Union of Public Employees was a British trade union which represented public sector workers. The union was founded in 1908 as the National Union of Corporation Workers, which split from the Municipal Employees Association, following Albin Taylor's dismissal as General Secretary...

) and COHSE (the Confederation of Health Service Employees

Confederation of Health Service Employees

The Confederation of Health Service Employees was a United Kingdom trade union representing workers primarily in the National Health Service...

) in 1993 to form UNISON

UNISON

General Secretaries

Levi Hill (1909–1943)
John Simonds (1943–1945)
John Warren (1946–1957)
Walter Anderson (1957–1973)
Geoffrey Drain (1973–1983)
John Daly (1983–1990)
Alan Jinkinson
Alan Jinkinson
Alan Jinkinson was the General Secretary of UNISON from 1993 to 1995, and previously the General Secretary of NALGO from 1990.-References:...

(1990–1993)

Sources

Alec Spoor (1967) White Collar Union – sixty years of NALGO
George Newman (1982) Path To Maturity – NALGO 1965-1980
Mike Ironside and Roger Seifert (2001) Facing Up to Thatcherism: The History of NALGO 1979-93

External links

A short history of NALGO on the Trade Union Ancestors website. Includes a list of all national presidents, treasurers, general secretaries and executive committee members from 1905 to 1967
UNISON
Archive of NALGO papers
Obituary of Geoffrey Drain

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