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Pressure, Protest and Struggle: Some Problems in the Concept and Theory of Industrial Conflict

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The Political Economy of Industrial Relations

Abstract

This chapter examines a number of themes involved in the interpretation and analysis of ‘industrial conflict’, linked by critical concern with the questions of purpose and rationality in collective actions by workers. The first section challenges the value of the conventional category of ‘industrial conflict’ as applied by industrial sociologists and social psychologists to a diverse range of individual and collective behaviours. In so far as these approaches do not embrace an explicit managerial pragmatism, their focus implicitly assimilates actions of very different form and character merely on the basis that they constitute problems for the employer. The dominant orientation of such approaches is thus negativity. Moreover, the dimension of rationality that gives many forms of employee action their meaning and significance is largely or wholly ignored.

First published as Chapter 20 in G. B. J. Bomers and R. B. Peterson (1982) Conflict Management and Industrial Relations, Kluwer-Nijhoff.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Warwick, UK

    Richard Hyman (Professor of Industrial Relations)

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  1. Richard Hyman
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© 1989 Richard Hyman

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Hyman, R. (1989). Pressure, Protest and Struggle: Some Problems in the Concept and Theory of Industrial Conflict. In: The Political Economy of Industrial Relations. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-19665-4_4

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