Bill Wedderburn, Baron Wedderburn of Charlton

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Bill Wedderburn, Baron Wedderburn of Charlton

Kenneth William "Bill" Wedderburn, Baron Wedderburn of Charlton QC (born April 13, 1927 in Deptford - † March 9, 2012 ) was a British lawyer , university professor and politician of the Labor Party , who published his book The Worker and the Law in 1965 became a pioneer in the field of labor law in the UK.

Life

Studies and professor at the LSE

After visiting the Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School in New Cross and the Whitgift School in South Croydon received Wedderburn a scholarship to study law at Queens' College of the University of Cambridge and graduated in 1949 with a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B .) with distinction.

After he had completed his military service in the Royal Air Force between 1949 and 1951 , he became a Fellow at Clare College at the University of Cambridge, where he introduced the basics of labor law in the context of the then merely taught business law. In 1953 he was by the Bar Association of the Middle Temple to the lawyer appointed.

After Otto Kahn-Freund was appointed professor of comparative law at the University of Oxford in 1964, Wedderburn succeeded him as professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science , where he founded an outstanding school for labor law with a number of outstanding students.

In addition to his teaching activity, his large number of books, articles and essays established his long-standing reputation.

He published his first reference book in the field of labor law, The Worker and the Law (1965), a standard work that appeared several times over the next 25 years in constantly sold out new editions. The first edition focused on the area of ​​early British labor law, which for example, through the Trade Disputes Act 1906, introduced trade union immunity from liability for damage caused by strikes . Later editions, on the other hand, dealt with the further developments that arose through the accession of Great Britain to the European Communities .

Union advisor and member of the House of Lords

In 1971 he started as a consultant to the Trades Union Congress (TUC), the umbrella organization of British unions against the government of the Conservative Party in 1971 introduced law on industrial relations ( Industrial Relations Bill ), and received a standing ovation for a speech to officials of the trade unions in the Royal Albert Hall .

After the Labor Party after the victory in the general election on 28 February 1974 with Harold Wilson to back Prime Minister could ask, was Wedderburn author of the Trade Union and Labor Relations Act 1974 , which the law of Tory should replace -Regierung. He then became chairman of the Independent Audit Committee of the TUC and was a member of the chairman after Alan Bullock called Bullock-Commission on the participation of the workers .

In 1977 he was raised to the nobility as a life peer with the title of Baron Wedderburn of Charlton and was henceforth a member of the House of Lords , the upper house of the British Parliament.

In the following years he published a number of comparative studies such as Labor Law and the Community (1983) and Employment Rights in Britain and Europe (1991). In addition, he organized and attended numerous international scientific conferences , which made him a leading specialist in European labor law. Wedderburn, who is also with contract law , tort law and commercial law employed, for 17 years editor of the trade magazine Modern Law Review . In 1981 he was elected a member of the British Academy .

Baron Wedderburn, who continued to practice as a lawyer and was appointed Crown Attorney in 1990 , taught at the London School of Economics and Political Science until his retirement in 1992.

During Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's administration , he voted against all eight anti-union laws being debated in the House of Lords. At that time he belonged predominantly to the Labor leadership, the Front Bench , in the House of Lords and delivered bitter speeches , especially with Viscount Hailsham , Lord Chancellor of the Thatcher government.

In 1989 he was a co-founder of the Institute of Employment Rights , a union-supported think tank for workers' rights, and was its president until 1995. In this position he hoped the institute would influence the legislation of future Labor governments. For example, a few years before the start of New Labor in 1997, he determined what he expected from the reforms of trade union law.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Fellows: Lord Wedderburn of Charlton. British Academy, accessed August 18, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Wedderburn, Bill
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wedderburn, Kenneth William, Baron Wedderburn of Charlton (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British Labor Party politician and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH April 13, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Deptford
DATE OF DEATH March 9, 2012