Labour under the marshall plan

The American programme of Marshall Aid in the later 1940s and early 1950s was a decisive factor in the economic and industrial recovery of western Europe. For success, it relied upon a positive response from organised labour in Europe to be administered by American trade unionists. Here, for the first time, the labour side of the Marshall Plan is discussed, detailing the interaction between American and European union movements and labour personnel and the struggle to influence the direction of post-war industrial society in Europe.

Marshall Aid was always in essence a businessmen's programme, based on the values of free enterprise: contrary to appearances, the interests of workers and organised labour were decidedly secondary. Its immediate achievement was to finalise the growing split in the international labour movement and to reinforce the prevailing anti-communism of much of the European movement. Not until the second half of the 1950s, through its long-term work in the field of education and training for labour and management, did its more positive managerial and pro-productivity values begin to permeate beyond the level of top union leadership and thus to influence European labour's agenda in ways supportive of liberal capitalism.

A major contribution to our understanding of the role of organised labour in the Cold War, this study will be of interest to students. and specialists in the fields of labour history, the political and diplomatic history of the Cold War, British, American and European industrial relations and management science.