ABSTRACT
During the 1980s, following the election of a Conservative government in 1979, de-industrialisation in Britain was accompanied by levels of unemployment unheard of in the postwar years and the virtual destruction of occupational communities centred on coal, steel and shipbuilding. Nationalised industries were sold off, whilst legislation systematically removed a series of rights and protections relating to employees and their representative bodies, most notably in respect of trade unions but also for other occupational groups such as professionals. There was a corresponding erosion of employment rights and the collective social insurances (such as, for example, employment protection legislation and unemployment benefit) together with other welfare provisions which had been key elements of the social ‘citizenship’ rights established as part of the postwar consensus (Marshall 1963), and an increasing emphasis upon the requirement for individual (self) provision.
