Trade Unions in Crisis: the 1961 ETU Ballot-Rigging Scandal

The ETU ballot-rigging trial was a case brought to the High Court by prominent union members John Thomas Byrne and Frank Chapple in 1961. They alleged that members of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) had engaged in "a conspiracy to defraud" in the most recent elections of the Electrical Trades Union (ETU), a relatively successful body that represented electricians, wire fitters, and telephone engineers. The judge ultimately ruled in the plaintiffs' favour.

This collection contains verbatim transcripts of the court case. The transcripts provide a unique insight into the CPGB’s influence in the post-war trade union movement.

The collection is accompanied by three contextual essays written by Professor Kevin Morgan, a senior academic at the University of Manchester.

The High Court judgment condemning the former Communist leadership of the ETU of ballot-rigging on a massive scale was, and remains, a historic...landmark in British trade unionism.

Geoffrey Goodman, The Guardian

Insights

Like other orthodox communists, the CPGB believed that trade unions were an important site of workers’ political consciousness and power. As such, they spent a great deal of resources attempting to gain positions of influence in union bureaucracies.

In the late 1950s, the ETU had a membership of over 240,000. It was controlled by a CPGB-aligned leadership headed by Frank Haxell. In 1959, Jock Byrne, a catholic and staunch anti-communist, ran against Haxell for the position of General Secretary.

Haxell won, but allegations of foul play and ballot-rigging soon emerged. A former CPGB member, Frank Chapple, eventually disputed the election results in court on behalf of Byrne.

The court papers from the trial are included in this collection. They detail the intricacies of union rules and the arguments of the prosecution and defence, as well as key witness testimony from those with first-hand experience of the scandal.

The High Court considered the case in the spring and summer of 1961. Evidence was presented which suggested officials affiliated to the CPGB had disqualified votes from local ETU branches that had overwhelmingly supported Byrne. In June, the court ruled that Haxell and 14 others were guilty of fixing the election.

After the verdict, the ETU banned CPGB members from holding office. Most subsequently left the party rather than lose their jobs. More broadly, the trial struck yet another blow to the leadership of John Gollan, which had been undermined by the fallout of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.

Highlights

Document

Opening speech by the plaintiffs, 17th April 1961

Document

Key witness: Frank Chapple, 28th April 1961

Document

Speech on behalf of the defendants, 8th May 1961

Document

Judgement, delivered by Justice Winn, 28th June 1961

Notable Individuals of the Communist Party of Great Britain

The Departments of the Communist Party of Great Britain: A Detailed Guide

The Archives of the Communist Party Of Great Britain: An Introduction

Editorial Board

Professor Kevin Morgan Professor of Politics and Contemporary History https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/kevin.morgan.html Kevin Morgan is the Professor of Politics and Contemporary History at the University of Manchester and recipient of an AHRC Fellowship for the project ‘Communism and the cult of the leader’. Professor Morgan is also the editor of the journal 'Twentieth Century Communism' and a trustee of the Communist Party of Great Britain Archives Trust and the Working Class Movement Library.