Over the Line: Managers' experience of a labour strike

Abstract

AbstractThe experiences of managers who continue to work through a labour stoppage is a largely overlooked question in industrial relations research and practice. Qualitative long interviews were conducted with managers who worked through a strike. A shared narrative for managers' strike experiences emerged. Managers perceived that their prestrike workplace was cooperative and characterized by positive labour‐management relationships. The strike was experienced as contentious and personalized with managers reporting that they and their families were targets of aggression from strikers. The managers envisioned a more formal poststrike workplace characterized by less collegial labour‐management interactions. We discuss the implications of these findings and call for further research on managers' experiences of industrial relations events. Copyright © 2014 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.