Trade Unions - Ruin, Retreat, or Rally?

Abstract

What has become of the unions? Researchers and political commentators on British industrial relations have long since split into those who empha sise decline and those stressing continuity. There are further sub-divisions, naturally, into partisans of terminal decline, of bare organisational survival, of arrestable retreat, of piecemeal but effective adaptation, and even of 'business as normal'. The public's dead union parrot, then, as far as nearly all serious observers go, is at least still sitting on its perch, albeit unsteadily, while some argue that it is capable of uttering an appealing new message. All the books reviewed can be readily placed on the continuity-decline continuum, though none makes the strong case for terminal decline and the one coming closest to 'business as usual' seems weakest on its knowledge of everyday industrial relations in the 1990s. However, all would agree upon the following five central trends in British industrial relations since 1980. 1. Exclusion. Unions ceased to be involved, with employers and the government, in tri-partite ('corporatist') bargaining over the economy. They lost their advisory roles in official policy bodies, even 'neutral' ones concerned with training. In private industry, managers consulted unions less often before major decisions; in the public sector, long-standing joint