ABSTRACT
In June 1968 the Royal Commission on Trade Unions and Employers’ Asso ciations (the Donovan Commission) published its famous report advocating the voluntary reform of collective bargaining. The major problems identi fied in die report - wage drift, ‘restrictive practices’ and unofficial strikes - were said to require far-reaching changes in the organization and policies of both management and unions.1 The Commissioners sat for three years and received over 450 submissions. But according to Lord McCardiy, Allan Flan ders’ essay Collective Bargaining: prescription for change was ‘the only written evidence that made a significant impact on dieir thinking’.2 As well as influencing the Donovan Commission, Flanders also worked for several public agencies that played a central role in die design, implementation and evaluation of state industrial relations policies in die 1960s, notably the National Board for Prices and Incomes (NBPI) and the Commission on In dustrial Relations (CIR). Indeed Flanders’ rise to prominence as an academic was largely die result of his policy-oriented writings of die 1960s, many of which were brought togedier in the influential and widely read collection Management and Unions (1970).3
