Employer and management strategies in the private sector

Abstract

In this chapter we look at changing employer industrial relations attitudes and strategies in the 1980s and the early 1990s. One of the major academic debates during the period was whether or not there had been a major shift by employers towards policies of macho-management, unitarism and anti-trade unionism. There has also been an extensive debate about Human Resource Management (HRM) — what it means, how widely it has been adopted, and what are its implications for traditional industrial relations and personnel management? Along with this has been a debate about individualism and collectivism in employee relations. These debates are in a sense part of the still wider question as to whether a ‘new industrial relations’ developed in this period. These issues are addressed in this chapter, although a final assessment is not made until Chapter 12.