The New Industrial Relations ?
Neil Millward

'another excellent analysis of British industrial relations'

London Review of Books

'Millward's analysis prompts us to ask whether we may one day pay the price for having removed so much of the fabric of employee relations without having invested anything in its place. I am convinced that this debate is far from over - this book keeps it alive'

Ewart Wooldridge, IPM vice-president, in Personnel Management

'I read it cover to cover... and I have featured some of it in the recent TUC relaunch. Congratulations'

John Monks, General Secretary, Trades Union Congress

Major changes in the structures, practices and conduct of industrial relations occurred during the Thatcher years. This book examines these changes from two complementary angles.

First, it focuses on the conduct of industrial relations in the most recently created workplaces to see how these are changing the overall picture.

Second, particular practices that gained fame - if not popularity - during the 1980s and early 1990s are examined in detail. These include single union agreements, no-strike clauses, pendulum arbitration, harmonisation and single status, new forms of communication between management and employees and various human resource management practices.

The author finds little increase in 'progressive' management practices in British industry and commerce. He sees no sign that the dramatic shrinkage in the extent of trade union representation is being offset by a growth in other methods of representation and no alternative model which could channel and attenuate conflicts between employers and employees has emerged. The recent growth in inequality in wages and earnings, greater in Britain than elsewhere, is being matched by a widening in the inequalities of influence and access to major decisions about work and employment. This incisive account makes an invaluable contribution to a key issue for public debate in the second half of the 1990s.

£15.00 paperback ISBN 0 85374 590 0
1994 192 pages 229 x 145mm
Report number 756