Britan Industrial Relations Sytem - Essay Example

In the 19th century Britain was at the peak of its power it ruled over a huge territory. In fact the whole world. It is the leading industrial and naval power of the 19th century; it led the way in developing parliamentary democracy and in advance literature as well as science. The British industrial relations system has a long history and has gone through much change in recent years. Industrial relations are also known as employee relations. Employee relation is are partly concerned with groups of employees who are represented by trade unions (Ed 2004 p 4).

There are three phases in the evolution of employee relations since the end of the World War II, the third one being the partnership approach. Until 1979 (date of the election of the Conservative Party), work relations were based on collective bargaining and collective agreement aiming to determine and regulate, in varying degrees, the terms on which individuals will be employed (Flanders 1968 p35), with a strong voluntarism encouraged massively and informally. The trade unions (basically, it is an association of wage earners, totally independent of employers pressure, who struggle to improve work conditions) had a lot of power and everything was negotiated through deals.

A Trade Union, through collective bargaining can force employers to deal with labour as a collective identity, rather than isolated individuals and so, secure better the terms and condition of employment. Nevertheless, in 1979when the conservative party won the election, everything changed. The new government used a lot measures to restrict the role of trade unions. In addition, it introduced an enterprise culture in which individuals and organisations, rather than government, were to be held responsible for economic performance.

Thus, as well as rejecting the maintenance of full employment as a major policy objective, they in effect abandoned the commitment of their