Conflict and Accommodation: the Dialectics of Industrial Relations

Abstract

To conclude this introductory discussion of industrial relations from a Marxist perspective, it is now possible to take up again some of the general issues of interpretation which were raised in the first chapter. What is the central character of industrial relations? Academic theorists, it will be recalled, tend to define their subject as a study of the institutions of job regulation. Yet this is far removed from the viewpoint of the average layman, whose immediate understanding of the term would almost certainly involve notions of industrial conflict in general and strikes in particular.