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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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strikes
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In the 1960s and 1970s strikes seemed an endemic part of the British industrial scene, being often quoted as the main symptom of what was known on the continent as the *'English disease'. The last winter of the Callaghan administration (1978–9) was marked by so many strikes that it became known as the *'winter of discontent', but the situation was even worse four months after the new Thatcher government had taken over; September 1979 registered the highest number of days lost through strikes in any month since the *General Strike in 1926.
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The total of days lost fell steadily during the 1980s, as successive employment acts tightened the law on picketing, abolished closed shops and introduced pre-strike ballots. Government funds had been on offer since early in the 1980s to pay for a secret ballot in any union contemplating strike action, but until 1986 the *TUC made it a disciplinary offence for an affiliated union to accept such money. Under the Employment Act of 1988 it finally became illegal for a union to call its members out on strike unless a majority had previously voted for such action in a secret ballot.
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