Industrial Relations, Historical Contingencies and Political Economy: Britain in the 1960s and 1970s

Abstract

Abstract Historical literature on labour and industrial relations is broadly silent on theoretical questions; and management and industrial relations literature tends to overlook historical contingency. This article brings these different literatures into closer alignment, examining the concept of pluralism in industrial relations, indicating that the embeddedness of non-pluralist values among employers shaped the erosion of pluralist realities — joint industrial bargaining mechanisms — from the 1970s onwards. The article explores Alan Fox's paper for the Donovan Commission, Industrial Sociology and Industrial Relations (1966), with its emphasis on the manner in which competing 'frames of reference' generated contrasting interpretations of industrial relations and industrial conflict, and examines material developments in the sectors singled out by Fox: coalmining and the docks. The article generally supports a central criticism of some pluralist approaches in industrial relations literature, concluding t...