Organised Capital: Employers' Associations and Industrial Relations in Northern England 1880-1939
Cambridge University Press
Edition: Revised ed., 6/20/2002
EAN 9780521890922, ISBN10: 0521890926
Paperback, 324 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm
Language: English
This detailed 1996 study contributes to an expanding field of interest: the social history of industrial employers. Using previously untapped primary sources, Organised Capital explores the emergence of employers' organisations in northern England and analyses their policies during the heyday of collective activity. Arthur McIvor evaluates the impact of trade unionism, state intervention, war, economic recession and changing product markets on these organisations, charting their role and patterns of growth. He challenges notions of a monolithic employer group and crude economic determinism, while also rejecting 'revisionist' accounts of weak and ineffective employers. Instead, he reaches a more balanced appraisal of these institutions' role in capital-labour relations and the pursuit of employers' class interests. This book will be of interest both to historians and to students of industrial relations.
Introduction
Part I. Setting the Scene
1. Context and historiography
2. The legacy
origins of employers' associations
Part II. Forging Employers' Associations, 1880–1920
3. Organisation, membership and solidarity
4. Strikebreaking
5. Collective bargaining and procedural control
6. The impact of World War One
Part III. Reacting to the Economic Slump
7. The millowners' counter-attack
8. Stabilising labour markets
building
9. Defending managerial prerogative
engineering
Conclusion.