Uninhibited Antagonism: Construction Hydraulics Ltd

John Purcell

Chapter 4 in Good Industrial Relations, 1981, pp 93-123 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract The CIR described industrial relations in three plants of the company as ‘unorthodox’ largely because, unlike any other CIR company, poor industrial relations was not associated with high strike-proneness. In place of strikes, however, there was ‘a continuous atmosphere of social turbulence’. This was largely explained by the company’s readiness to concede in the face of threats and claims in order to maintain production to satisfy customer needs. The combination of bitter inter-union rivalry, chaotic wage- payment systems, managerial inability to control and schedule production, and a plethora of section-based negotiations handled by the convenors combined to develop an industrial relations system which the CIR considered to be ‘in a dangerous state — not because of anything that has happened in the past but because of things which might happen in the future if things remain unaltered. It is to the credit of all concerned that the potentially explosive situation whereby three shop stewards’ convenors are negotiating, almost continuously with the industrial relations manager, or his deputy, or both, or with the chief rate fixer, often under the threat of a stoppage, has been contained so far.’

Keywords: Trade Union; Payment System; Industrial Relation; Work Council; Average Balance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1981
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-349-04503-7_4

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9781349045037

DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-04503-7_4

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().