National and Local Government Officers' Association - National and Local

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

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 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) and COHSE (the Confederation of Health Service Employees) in 1993 to form UNISON.