Economic League
Contents
Summary
Established in 1919 by conservative politicians and industrialists the Economic League was a pro-capitalist and anti socialist propagandist group. In public it conducted a “Crusade for Capitalism” targeted at the workforce of local members’ factories, and a against the ‘subversion” of trade union activism and left of centre political parties. Behind closed doors it set up and ran a blacklist of allegedly “subversive” workers, accessed by their member company After the Second World War the League continued both strands of propagandist activity and continued to campaign for capitalism especially through partisan apprentice training, and against activism through pamphlets and media stories and more clandestinely through a blacklist made available to members. However from the 1970s its role in pro-capitalism lobbying became less important as a result of the changes to the structure of the workforce in the UK and the demise of Industrial training and apprenticeships, . The League focused on campaigning against trade union activism and continued to provide a blacklisting service for member companies. Construction and Engineering Companies paid an additional premium for this service in their industries and became subscribers to the Economic League Services Group. The League’s income and importance as a pro capital and anti-activist lobbyist declined during the 1980s with an economic recession that reduced the number of corporate members, and Government sympathetic to their political views. Attempts to rationalise and restructure the League lead to internal disputes and at least one discontent employee leaking information and documents to journalists about the Leagues’s continuing blacklisting activities. The result of this was there was a series of damaging media exposes, notably by World in Action and by Journalist Richard Norton Taylor writing in the guardian, and Paul Foot writing in the “Mirror”. This led the UK Parliament’s Employment Select Committee to conduct a public inquiry into the League’s activities. Its final report in 1992 was highly critical of their blacklisting activities. In 1993 the Economic League was placed in liquidation and wound up. It claimed that the blacklist had been destroyed. The Employment Relations Act 1999 made provision for blacklisting to be made illegal through regulations, these were not however enacted. In 2009 the Information Commissioner’s Office raided the offices of an trade association called The Consulting Association run by a former employee of the Economic League This group had continued to run the Services Group blacklist on behalf the construction companies who had subscribed to it, and he was prosecuted and fined for breaches of the data protection laws. Following this prosecution the Employment Relations Act 1999(Blacklists) Regulations 2010 were finally enacted making Blacklisting Illegal in the UK. There were more than 3,000 workers on The Consulting Association blacklist. A Blacklist Support Group was established with support from trade unions and trade unionist with high profile campaigns against blacklisting companies and private prosecutions. These are continuing. In the UKParliament another Select Committee - The Scottish Selected Committee - decided to examine the current reality of the blacklisting calling number of former Economic League Employees and corporate supporters to give evidence.
History and People
People
Founders/Early days
1940s-1960s
1970s-1990s
Stan Hardy | Ian Kerr | Jack Winder |Sir Henry Saxon Tate of Tate & Lyle |
Resources
Publications on the Economic League
- Labour Research Department What is the Economic League? Labour White Papers No. 23, Labour Research Department, London, 1927.
- Labour Research Department What is the Economic League? Revised Edition, Foreword by Ebby Edwards, Secretary, Mineworkers Federation of Great Britain, Labour Research Department, London, 1937.
- Labour Research Department Who is Behind Them?, May 1953.
- Labour Research Department A Subversive Guide to the Economic League 1969.
- Mike Hughes Spies at Work, Printed version ISBN 0948995053, 1 IN 12 PUBLICATIONS, 1994.
Economic League publications
- Economic League, Subversion in Industry, Economic League (London and South Eastern Region), February 1958
- Economic League, The Agitators: Who the are. How they work. What they want. Service To Industry Series, Booklet No. 3, London: Economic League Central Council, No date. Most propably published in the latter half of 1974.
