The Restrictive Practices of Capital: Employer Commercial Opportunism, Labour Militancy and Economic Performance in the Engineering Construction Industry, 1960-80

Marek Korczynski

Business History, 1999, vol. 41, issue 3, 134-160

Abstract: The engineering construction industry, 1960-80, apparently provided a classic example of the British Worker Problem. The industry was host to widespread military and suffered very poor performance. Public reports at the time made a causal link between the two. Research, however, shows the importance of employer commercial opportunism, or restrictive practices, in generating the poor performance. Examples of this opportunism included contractor firms withholding information from clients, underbidding, and deliberately slowing production in order to force extra payments from clients. This commercial opportunism also played an important part in setting the context for high labour militancy. While labour militancy was not the central cause of poor performance in the industry, the militancy did serve to consolidate the approach of contractors which focused on profit through commercial opportunism.

Date: 1999
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DOI: 10.1080/00076799900000310

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