For up to twenty years after the Second World War both in Britain and the US boasted `mature' industrial relations systems supported by their governments and, allowing for some differences in degree, by most employers. Since the early 1980s, these systems have been critically weakened. This comparative industrial relations text explains this development primarily through the withdrawal of public policy support and, mainly in Britain's case, its replacement by government hostility.

An important consequence of this is the erosion of the effective defence and representation of employee...