Henry Phelps Brown on Industrial Relations

Abstract

As a labour economist, Henry Phelps Brown regarded industrial relations as providing the institutional and sociological information necessary for a proper understanding of the operation of the labour market, and its implications for wages policy in particular and economic policy in general. His main interest in this connection was the role of British trade unions, although he drew also on the experiences of other countries. His method of understanding the power of contemporary unionism was to analyse its historical development in the context of larger society—economic, social and political. Phelps Brown gave considerable emphasis to the ‘legacy of history’ in explaining the persistent British attitude of opposition to legal regulation of industrial relations. While favouring workplace agreements as providing a logical and realistic basis for promoting industrial harmony and productivity, Phelps Brown saw the changes in the economic and social environment since the 1950s as conducive to cost push inflation...