Codetermination – workers’ participation in management – forms part of the industrial relations traditions of a number of European countries. Among these, the German system of parity codetermination (paritatische Mitbestimmung) which was first introduced in the iron and steel industries by the British military command after the Second World War provides the greatest level of involvement for workers. Similar debates which are often overlooked over the introduction of codetermination were taking place in the UK in the late 1940s. This article provides a new perspective on the history of codetermination in the UK and Germany in order to explain why codetermination was introduced in its current form in Germany but not in the UK. The article questions whether the failure to institute a system of workers’ participation in management in the UK should be considered a missed opportunity.
{"title":"German codetermination without nationalization, and British nationalization without codetermination : retelling the story","authors":"Rebecca L. Zahn","doi":"10.3828/HSIR.2015.36.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/HSIR.2015.36.1","url":null,"abstract":"Codetermination – workers’ participation in management – forms part of the industrial relations traditions of a number of European countries. Among these, the German system of parity codetermination (paritatische Mitbestimmung) which was first introduced in the iron and steel industries by the British military command after the Second World War provides the greatest level of involvement for workers. Similar debates which are often overlooked over the introduction of codetermination were taking place in the UK in the late 1940s. This article provides a new perspective on the history of codetermination in the UK and Germany in order to explain why codetermination was introduced in its current form in Germany but not in the UK. The article questions whether the failure to institute a system of workers’ participation in management in the UK should be considered a missed opportunity.","PeriodicalId":36746,"journal":{"name":"Historical Studies in Industrial Relations","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-08-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.3828/HSIR.2015.36.1","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70517350","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article seeks to refresh the understanding of the 1942 Betteshanger strike, the famous symbol of the failure to enforce Order 1305, which was introduced in 1940 to ban strikes during the Second World War. The analysis is based on an ethnographic survey carried out at Betteshanger by Mass Observation during the conflict, a key primary source which has not been exploited before. It allows for a study of the conflicting descriptions and framing of the dispute by the strikers, their families and neighbours, union representatives and rank and file, coal owners and colliery managers, conciliation officers from various departments, and the press. The contention is that the complex connections between three spheres of justice – patriotism, social justice, and legality – are a central issue in reassessing the reasons for the failure to enforce Order 1305 in Betteshanger colliery.
{"title":"Spheres of justice in the 1942 Betteshanger miners' strike : an essay in historical ethnography","authors":"Ariane Mak","doi":"10.3828/HSIR.2015.36.2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/HSIR.2015.36.2","url":null,"abstract":"This article seeks to refresh the understanding of the 1942 Betteshanger strike, the famous symbol of the failure to enforce Order 1305, which was introduced in 1940 to ban strikes during the Second World War. The analysis is based on an ethnographic survey carried out at Betteshanger by Mass Observation during the conflict, a key primary source which has not been exploited before. It allows for a study of the conflicting descriptions and framing of the dispute by the strikers, their families and neighbours, union representatives and rank and file, coal owners and colliery managers, conciliation officers from various departments, and the press. The contention is that the complex connections between three spheres of justice – patriotism, social justice, and legality – are a central issue in reassessing the reasons for the failure to enforce Order 1305 in Betteshanger colliery.","PeriodicalId":36746,"journal":{"name":"Historical Studies in Industrial Relations","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-08-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.3828/HSIR.2015.36.2","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70517408","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Three decades after the events themselves and with full access to the public record, historians and political scientists are now well placed to revisit and re-evaluate the ‘Winter of Discontent’. This article reflects on the first book-length studies of the period published since the opening of the archives. I argue that although neither study profoundly alters our view of this crucial episode and its place in the pre-history of Thatcherism, taken together the evidence they uncover might provide the basis for an alternative assessment. Ultimately, however, such an assessment requires more attention to methodology and, above all, an approach to the archives and to witness testimony that is both more inductive and more deductive than that exhibited in the existing literature. In the process I hope to clarify what we now know and we have still to learn about the winter of 1978–79 and the popular mythology to which it gave rise.
{"title":"Review Essays Symposium: The Winter of Discontent","authors":"C. Hay","doi":"10.3828/HSIR.2015.36.7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/HSIR.2015.36.7","url":null,"abstract":"Three decades after the events themselves and with full access to the public record, historians and political scientists are now well placed to revisit and re-evaluate the ‘Winter of Discontent’. This article reflects on the first book-length studies of the period published since the opening of the archives. I argue that although neither study profoundly alters our view of this crucial episode and its place in the pre-history of Thatcherism, taken together the evidence they uncover might provide the basis for an alternative assessment. Ultimately, however, such an assessment requires more attention to methodology and, above all, an approach to the archives and to witness testimony that is both more inductive and more deductive than that exhibited in the existing literature. In the process I hope to clarify what we now know and we have still to learn about the winter of 1978–79 and the popular mythology to which it gave rise.","PeriodicalId":36746,"journal":{"name":"Historical Studies in Industrial Relations","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-08-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.3828/HSIR.2015.36.7","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70517434","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This contribution provides the context to French employment relations and Eric Batstone’s illuminating description of the French worker–employer, plant-level interface in the 1970s. The 1970s represented a transition decade between the post-war boom and the significantly lower levels of growth and higher levels of unemployment that set in from the 1980s. In France, as in Britain, the 1970s was a decade of trade-union growth. The numbers of private-sector strikes are shown from 1960 to 1999, as is the evolution of the wage-share of GDP in both France and the UK. The article discusses why French workers have never joined French trade unions in the same numbers as occurred in Britain, and yet are ready to accept the use of minority direct action and to support mass strikes.
{"title":"Arms’-Length or Nose to Nose? Eric Batstone and Bargaining in 1970s France","authors":"S. Jefferys","doi":"10.3828/HSIR.2015.36.3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/HSIR.2015.36.3","url":null,"abstract":"This contribution provides the context to French employment relations and Eric Batstone’s illuminating description of the French worker–employer, plant-level interface in the 1970s. The 1970s represented a transition decade between the post-war boom and the significantly lower levels of growth and higher levels of unemployment that set in from the 1980s. In France, as in Britain, the 1970s was a decade of trade-union growth. The numbers of private-sector strikes are shown from 1960 to 1999, as is the evolution of the wage-share of GDP in both France and the UK. The article discusses why French workers have never joined French trade unions in the same numbers as occurred in Britain, and yet are ready to accept the use of minority direct action and to support mass strikes.","PeriodicalId":36746,"journal":{"name":"Historical Studies in Industrial Relations","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-08-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.3828/HSIR.2015.36.3","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70517458","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A review of the French literature on industrial relations demonstrates marked contrasts to the English literature. This paper seeks to understand the broader pattern of industrial relations in two French plants and, where possible, to assess the typicality of the findings. It focuses upon what will be termed “arms’-length bargaining”, by which is meant that at plant level, bargaining in terms of negotiations around a table, in other words, of an institutionalized form, is of limited significance. Nevertheless, the two parties have a considerable impact upon each other; that is pressures are imposed at the workplace rather than at the bargaining table. In such a situation, the crucial factor from the union point of view is to prove to management that the demands put forward are strongly felt by the workforce. It is in this respect that the strike and other forms of collective action assume particular importance. Arms’-length bargaining therefore involves two crucial types of strategy for both employers and the unions: the first is issue-specific, while the second seeks to influence the broader background conditions in one’s own favour.
{"title":"Arms’-Length Bargaining: Industrial Relations in a French Company","authors":"Eric Batstone","doi":"10.3828/hsir.2015.36.4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/hsir.2015.36.4","url":null,"abstract":"A review of the French literature on industrial relations demonstrates marked contrasts to the English literature. This paper seeks to understand the broader pattern of industrial relations in two French plants and, where possible, to assess the typicality of the findings. It focuses upon what will be termed “arms’-length bargaining”, by which is meant that at plant level, bargaining in terms of negotiations around a table, in other words, of an institutionalized form, is of limited significance. Nevertheless, the two parties have a considerable impact upon each other; that is pressures are imposed at the workplace rather than at the bargaining table. In such a situation, the crucial factor from the union point of view is to prove to management that the demands put forward are strongly felt by the workforce. It is in this respect that the strike and other forms of collective action assume particular importance. Arms’-length bargaining therefore involves two crucial types of strategy for both employers and the unions: the first is issue-specific, while the second seeks to influence the broader background conditions in one’s own favour.","PeriodicalId":36746,"journal":{"name":"Historical Studies in Industrial Relations","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-08-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.3828/hsir.2015.36.4","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70517532","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Containing, Isolating, and Defeating the Miners: The UK Cabinet Ministerial Group on Coal and the Three Phases of the 1984-85 Strike","authors":"J. Phillips","doi":"10.3828/HSIR.2014.35.5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/HSIR.2014.35.5","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":36746,"journal":{"name":"Historical Studies in Industrial Relations","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.3828/HSIR.2014.35.5","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70517300","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Unions naked and unprotected at the altar of the common law. Inducement of Breach of Contract of Employment: South Wales Miners' Federation and Others v. Glamorgan Coal Co. and Others [1905]","authors":"Paul M. Smith","doi":"10.3828/HSIR.2014.35.2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/HSIR.2014.35.2","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":36746,"journal":{"name":"Historical Studies in Industrial Relations","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.3828/HSIR.2014.35.2","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70517515","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Neoliberalism: Wanted, Dead or Alive","authors":"B. Jackson","doi":"10.3828/HSIR.2014.35.9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/HSIR.2014.35.9","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":36746,"journal":{"name":"Historical Studies in Industrial Relations","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.3828/HSIR.2014.35.9","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70517348","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Game Changer: Hugh Clegg's Role in Drafting the 1968 Donovan Report and Redefining the British Industrial Relations Policy-Problem","authors":"P. Ackers","doi":"10.3828/HSIR.2014.35.3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/HSIR.2014.35.3","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":36746,"journal":{"name":"Historical Studies in Industrial Relations","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.3828/HSIR.2014.35.3","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70517586","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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