Why Industrial Relations?

Abstract

I have chosen to begin with a dangerous question. ‘Why indeed?’ is the predictable response. Teaching and research in industrial relations are widely viewed with disfavour or suspicion. For some of our learned colleagues the subject is not properly academic: an amorphous and eclectic mishmash, without adequate disciplinary foundation. To many practitioners we are too academic; often we are also accused of bias, managers seeing us as pro-union, trade unionists as pro-management. Those who endorse the philosophies of the current government tend to despise industrial relations, as an expression of the system of sectional interest representation and compromise which they denounce as a major cause of Britain’s economic problems. Even among industrial relations academics themselves one can detect considerable doubt and uncertainty as to the nature and status of our subject in a changing world of work.¹

Inaugural lecture delivered at University of Warwick, 3 February 1987.