This thesis explores the impact of one particular change in industrial conflict legislation in the 1980s: that is, the requirement for trade unions to hold ballots before industrial action. It does so by analysing the results of an extensive postal questionnaire survey, covering 846 negotiators in 25 unions. This was part of a wider research project on the impact of changes in the law, incorporating interviews with employers and senior National Officers of trade unions. The conclusions in the thesis also draw on these findings. The fieldwork was carried out in 1991 and 1992. It took into account a number of modifications - notably in 1988 and 1990 - to the original balloting provisions in the 1984 Trade Union Act. The thesis provides an analysis of the impact of the industrial action balloting requirement on trade union practices and the role of balloting in negotiations, looking beyond injunctions and high profile court cases. The thesis is primarily concerned to examine the impact of ballots on the processes of collective bargaining. It concludes that the effects of the 1984 balloting laws, including their amendments, were far more complex than anticipated or claimed by the Government. Internally industrial action ballots were accommodated by trade unions into existing consultation processes. The potential for ballots to modify substantive decisions within trade unions, by centralising and formalising decision making, was thereby limited. Amendments to the balloting laws increased the difficulties for trade union negotiators in accommodating ballots in the collective bargaining process. Trade union negotiators, however, sought by and large to conduct industrial action in accordance with the balloting laws and, despite an increasingly restrictive legal framework, there was a widespread perception among trade union negotiators in the early 1990s that this could bring negotiating advantage. Generally, it is apparent that industrial action ballots were one aspect of a complex process of sometimes radical change in industrial relations throughout the 1980s.

No / This article examines whether the downward trajectory in strike activity in nine Western European economies has continued over recent years. In doing so, it considers the nature of the dominant forms of extant strike activity and how these relate to systems of collective bargaining and political exchange. The main findings are three-fold. First, while there has been a general decline in aggregate strike activity, this has often been punctuated by sharp peaks. Second, the dominant nature of the strike activity, especially the sharp peaks, has become increasingly concerned with mounting demonstrative collective mobilizations in the political, rather than industrial, arena. Consequently, much strike activity is increasingly being deployed as a tool of political leverage with governments rather than as a tool of industrial leverage with (private sector) employers. Third, official data on strikes are becoming increasingly unreliable as they contain ever more significant exclusions, raising not so much the prospect of an end to quiescence but an over-estimation of the extent of decline.

Αντικείμενο της παρούσας μελέτης είναι η θεωρητική επισκόπηση και ανάλυση των προσδιοριστικών παραγόντων, των πεδίων συγκρούσεων, των τάσεων και των προοπτικών των Βιομηχανικών Σχέσεων, των σχέσεων που αναπτύσσονται ανάμεσα στους συλλογικά διαπραγματευόμενους εργαζόμενους με τους εργοδότες και διαμεσολαβείται από το κράτος και τους διεθνείς οργανισμούς. Επιχειρείται ο προσδιορισμός της ιστορικής τους καταβολής και εξέλιξης, ο καταλυτικός ρόλος των εργατικών συνδικάτων και η παρουσίαση των εννοιών της Βιομηχανικής Δημοκρατίας και της Βιομηχανικής Σύγκρουσης. Εξετάζεται το νέο - μεταφορντικό μοντέλο παραγωγής στα πλαίσια του σταδίου καπιταλιστικής ανάπτυξης του ολοκληρωτικού καπιταλισμού, η ευελιξία, η παγκοσμιοποίηση και οι διεθνικές επιχειρήσεις ως προσδιοριστικοί παράγοντες των σύγχρονων Βιομηχανικών Σχέσεων στο διεθνές περιβάλλον, εξετάζονται οι τάσεις σύγκλισης των συστημάτων Βιομηχανικών Σχέσεων και παρουσιάζεται ένα μοντέλο εργατικού διεθνισμού ως απάντηση των εργαζομένων στις διεθνείς πιέσεις. Η μελέτη εστιάζει, επίσης, στα χαρακτηριστικά των εργατικών και εργοδοτικών οργανώσεων, στα επίπεδα συνδικαλιστικής πυκνότητας και βιομηχανικής σύγκρουσης, στους θεσμούς, στις διαδικασίες διαλόγου και στις σύγχρονες τάσεις που καταγράφονται στις Βιομηχανικές Σχέσεις σε επίπεδο Ευρωπαϊκής Ένωσης. Επιχειρείται να προσδιοριστεί πώς η πολιτική της Ευρωπαϊκής Ένωσης - που εκφράζεται μέσω των «Πράσινων» και «Λευκών Βίβλων» - συμβάλει στην ανάπτυξη πεδίων συγκρούσεων και αποτελεί προσδιοριστικό παράγοντα των Βιομηχανικών Σχέσεων στην Ευρωπαϊκή Ένωση και συμβάλει στην τάση σύγκλισης των εθνικών συστημάτων Βιομηχανικών Σχέσεων. Η ιστορική εξέλιξη, τα χαρακτηριστικά, οι βαθμίδες και οι τύποι συνδικαλιστικής οργάνωσης των εργατικών και εργοδοτικών οργανώσεων, τα πολιτικά ρεύματα που δραστηριοποιούνται εντός του εργατικού κινήματος, η συνδικαλιστική πυκνότητα και η εξέλιξη της απεργιακής δράσης στην Ελλάδα, αποτελούν σημαντικό τμήμα στην ανάλυση των ελληνικών Βιομηχανικών Σχέσεων. Επιχειρείται μια σύνοψη των βασικών χαρακτηριστικών – προσδιοριστικών παραγόντων του ελληνικού συνδικαλιστικού κινήματος και η αποτύπωση των σύγχρονων τάσεων οργάνωσης εντός και εκτός των δομών του. Αποτυπώνονται τα βασικά χαρακτηριστικά των ελληνικών Βιομηχανικών Σχέσεων και οι πρόσφατες εξελίξεις στο περιεχόμενο και τις δομές τους υπό την επίδραση της διαδικασίας της παγκοσμιοποίησης, του παγκόσμιου οικονομικού περιβάλλοντος και της Ευρωπαϊκής Ένωσης. / The aim of the present study is the theoretical review and analysis of the defining factors, fields of conflicts, tendencies and perspectives of Industrial Relations, that are developed between collectively negotiating workers and the employers and are intermediated by the state and international organisations. It is also attempted to determinate their historical background and development, the catalytic role of working trade unions and to present significations such as Industrial Democracy and Industrial Conflict. The new post fordism mode of production in the frame of the new stage of capitalist development of totalitarian capitalism is examined, as well as the flexibility, the globalisation and the international enterprises as defining factors of modern Industrial Relations in the international environment. The tendencies of convergence of systems of Industrial Relations are also examined and a model of labor internationalism is presented as an answer of workers in international pressures. The study also focuses on the characteristics of workers’ and employers’ organisations at the level of trade-union density and industrial conflict, as well as on the institutions, the processes of dialogue and in the contemporary tendencies that are recorded in the Industrial Relations in European Union. It is attempted to determine how the policy of European Union - that it is expressed via “Green” and “White Papers” - constitutes a defining factor of Industrial Relations in the European Union and contributes to the growth of fields of conflicts and to the tendency to convergence of the national systems of Industrial Relations. The historical evolution, the characteristics, the levels and types of trade-union formation of labor and employing organisations, the political streaming activated in to the labor movement, the trade-union density and the evolution of strike action in Greece consist a major subject in the analysis of greek Industrial Relations. It is attempted a synopsis of the main characteristics and defining factors of greek labor movement and the imprinting of contemporary tendencies of internal and external organisation. The main characteristics of greek Industrial Relations and the recent developments of their content and structure under the effect of the globalisation process, the global economic environment and the European Union are recorded in the present study.