The Development of Industrial Relations in Great Britain

Abstract

IN all but the most superficial respects the system of industrial relations in Great Britain offers a marked contrast to those of the Scandinavian countries. Great Britain possesses a complex, differentiated and relatively decentralised institutional system which has not led to the formal and comprehensive normative regulation of industrial relations we have found in these other north European countries. To be sure, Great Britain does share some features in common with Scandinavia; but, as I have implied, these similarities are more apparent than real. For example, any comparison of the respective central labour organisations — such as the Swedish L.O. and the British T.U.C. — must not take their mere existence as an indication of overwhelming similarity. These organisations possess immense power in Scandinavia, whereas the T.U.C. has displayed chronic constitutional and de facto weakness throughout its entire history.