Patterns of Industrial Relations

Abstract

In Chapt. 1 the conventional structural approach to good industrial relations was considered, with the formalisation of rules and rule-making institutions at establishment or company level seen as an essential prerequisite for reform. Contrasted with this ideal was the sort of fragmented, largely unstructured disorder prevalent in many engineering establishments at the time of Donovan. By implication a simple scale could be constructed indicating the degree of formalisation which would be synonymous with different types of industrial relations along the good-bad dimension (Fig. 3.1).