Strikes and Industrial Conflict

THROUGHOUT the 1950s and 1960s it was fashionable for sociologists to conceptualise the changes in the structure of western industrial societies since the nineteenth century as a process of institutionalisation. It had been argued in the nineteenth century that capitalist industrialisation had transformed these societies in such a way that new classes and strata had emerged which rendered the traditional institutions obsolete and consequently inadequate for their task of regulating social divisions and conflicts. The analytical presentation of this observation was, in essence, common to many writers including, for example, Marx and de Tocqueville — despite their rather different evaluations of the process. For Marx, capitalist development had eroded the morally sanctioned bonds of feudal society and linked the new classes of bourgeoisie and proletariat by the stark cash nexus. Similarly, de Tocqueville pointed out the harshness of authority relations in a situation in which the masters had abrogated the responsibilities of paternalism while retaining its material privileges and the servants no longer saw obedience as a divine obligation. In other words, observers noted that the major economic and political conflicts were characterised by the absence of appropriate institutionalised normative regulation.

IN all but the most superficial respects the system of industrial relations in Great Britain offers a marked contrast to those of the Scandinavian countries. Great Britain possesses a complex, differentiated and relatively decentralised institutional system which has not led to the formal and comprehensive normative regulation of industrial relations we have found in these other north European countries. To be sure, Great Britain does share some features in common with Scandinavia; but, as I have implied, these similarities are more apparent than real. For example, any comparison of the respective central labour organisations — such as the Swedish L.O. and the British T.U.C. — must not take their mere existence as an indication of overwhelming similarity. These organisations possess immense power in Scandinavia, whereas the T.U.C. has displayed chronic constitutional and de facto weakness throughout its entire history.