2. By the same author
THE WORKERS' UNION
MARXISM AND THE SOCIOLOGY OF TRADE UNIONISM
DISPUTES PROCEDURE IN ACTION
STRIKES
SOCIAL VALUES AND INDUSTRIAL-RELATIONS
THE NEW WORKING CLASS ? (ed. with Robert Price)
6. Contents
Preface IX
Introduction 1
1 What is Industrial Relations? 9
2 Trade Union Structure 32
3 Union Policy and Union Democracy 64
4 Gapital and Industrial Relations 94
5 Ideology and the State 121
6 Rank-and-File Organisation and Action 150
7 Conflict and Accommodation : the Dialectics of
Industrial Relations 185
Guide to Further Reading 205
Bibliography 211
Index 219
7. Preface
Research and analysis in industrial relations usually start from
the assumption that stable and orderly relationships between
employers and workers are normal and self-evidently desirable.
Much of the literature is explicitly designed to advise managers
how to maintain a tractable labour force. The Marxist focus on
class struggle and workers' self-activity is therefore alien to the
most commonly disseminated perspectives on industrial relations.
Understandably, the very concept of 'industrial relations' is
regarded with suspicion by Marxists : 'the consecrated euphemism
for the permanent conflict, now acute, now subdued, between
capital and labour' (Miliband 1969: 80).* This has not inhibited
some Marxists from criticising the mystification and apologetics
displayed by much of the literature. But the critics themselves
tend to accept their opponents' battleground, by confronting par-
ticular aspects of the current orthodoxy in a piecemeal and nega-
tive manner. None has attempted to set out an integrated alter-
native approach, rooted in more general Marxist theory.
This then is the aim of the present book. The intention is to
~ketch an approach which grasps 'industrial relations' as an ele-
ment in a totality of social relations of production. Because of the
focus on theory, the development of a framework for analysis, no
attempt is made to provide a comprehensive survey of the em-
pirical detail of industrial relations or the views of other writers
- though the text deals partially with both.
My intellectual debts are twofold. Whatever understanding of
Marxism I can claim I owe to the writings of Marx and Engels
*References and quotations in the text give author and date of publi-
cation, together {where appropriate) with the page(s) cited. Details of
publication are given in the Bibliography.
8. X Preface
themselves, of Lenin, Luxemburg, 'Trotsky, Lukacs, Gramsci and
a host of others; to discussions with many fine comrades in the
course of a number of years in the socialist movement; and to the
lessons of workers themselves engaged in struggle. Most that I
know about British industrial relations I have learned from
teachers, colleagues, students and trade unionists. Since in this
book I focus on many points of mutual disagreement, it is appro-
priate to record how much I owe to Hugh Clegg, whose com-
pendious knowledge and unrelenting critical eye have done much
over the years to sharpen my own presentation of controversial
interpretations. In writing this particular book I have benefited
from the criticisms of a number of colleagues, many of whom are
unsympathetic to its basic argument.
In seeking to develop a Marxist perspective for the intro-
ductory reader I have been faced by two problems which I
cannot claim to have resolved satisfactorily. The first is that
Marxism is far from monolithic : but most of the differences of
interpretation and subtleties of analysis have had to be neglected
here. The second is conceptual. The categories which form the
normal framework of academic analysis and everyday discourse
(and not merely in industrial relations) are often superficial, and
fail to permit adequate analysis of key social processes and
relationships. For this reason, Marxists have developed concepts
and terminology which are often strange and even uncomprehen-
sible to the uninitiated. Because of the introductory level of this
book I have attempted to employ everyday language as far as
possible; and for this reason, some Marxists may accuse me of
oversimplification. The Guide to Further Reading at the end of
the book points to more varied and more developed Marxist
treatment of many of the issues covered in the text.
May this book soon become redundant : first by stimulating
more, and better, Marxist scholarship in industrial relations;
second, and far more important, by the abolition of 'industrial
relations' as it exists today through working-class struggle.
R.H.
Coventry, February 1975
