UNSPECIFIED (1994) RESTRICTIVE PRACTICES ON THE SHOP-FLOOR IN BRITAIN, 1945-60 - MYTH AND REALITY. BUSINESS HISTORY, 36 (2). pp. 65-84. ISSN 0007-6791

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Abstract

It is widely assumed that shopfloor restrictive practices were both pervasive and very damaging in post-war British industry. Indeed, this point has been repeated by both politicians and academics, receiving perhaps its most sophisticated exposition in the work of Mancur Olson. However, a review of the contemporary evidence reveals that such an interpretation is almost wholly erroneous. Some commentators made much of restrictive practices in the 1940s and 1950s, but their accounts are hardly convincing. On the other hand, a range of more comprehensive enquiries into the problem consistently showed that it was of limited importance. Serious restrictionism, in fact, was confined to a very few sectors - the printing industry, the docks and shipbuilding - and cannot, anyway, be explained simply in terms of labour intransigence. These facts clearly need to be incorporated in future accounts of Britain's post-war industrial decline.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HF Commerce H Social Sciences
Journal or Publication Title:	BUSINESS HISTORY
Publisher:	FRANK CASS CO LTD
ISSN:	0007-6791
Date:	April 1994
Volume:	36
Number:	2
Number of Pages:	20
Page Range:	pp. 65-84
Publication Status:	Published
URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/20703

Data sourced from Thomson Reuters' Web of Knowledge

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