Shop Floor Bargaining and the State: Historical and Comparative Perspectives

The troubled relationship between shop floor bargaining and the state engages debaters about the nature of politics in capitalist societies. Yet empirical studies of this relationship have focused primarily upon macro-economic problems and labour legislation, rather than state involvement in industrial relations at the workplace itself. The seven essays in this volume undermine established interpretations of the state as a defender of managerial prerogatives in the workplace, and stress instead the ambiguous and contradictory results of state intervention in particular historical circumstances. In the British case, detailed studies of ship building during the First World War, dock decasualisation and the unionisation of the motor industry, show that the state has at key moments enhanced the autonomy of shop floor organisation. Comparative studies of New Deal America, postwar Italy and the British and American aerospace industries confirm this finding in an international context, and provide contrasting points of reference for the British case.