ABSTRACT
The relationship of technological change, labour market structure, and trade union policy has long been neglected in social and economic research. This neglect is certainly related to the division of labour between industrial relations research, industrial sociology, and economics. This chapter examines the cases of the United States, Great Britain, and Italy to see if, and to what extent, the link between production and trade union policy differs from the West German pattern. The preceding analyses suggest that the thesis needs considerable revision but need not be entirely abandoned. Although a considerable margin can be demonstrated for the control functions of trade union politics during phases of prosperity, the continuing employment crisis reveals that this margin is drastically reduced through increasing restrictions at the level of the labour market and the structure of production.
