ABSTRACT
The interplay of entrepreneurial and labour strategies over time in the development of objectives and norms which govern the affairs of industries or organisations is an area of special concern to the sociologist of industrial relations. In quite crucial respects the tangible outcomes of this interplay can be found in the bargains they achieved as these reflected the changing power relations between the formal parties to work control. The major change which had occurred in the conditions of interdependence by 1945 is perhaps the most outstanding feature of this strategic review of industrial relations. In the account which follows complex pattern of convergent and divergent interests between employer and union and between unions in the industry will be outlined. Their central theme is immediately apparent and runs through the complex of strategies which combined to sustain the high average earnings of both iron and steelworkers during the nineteenth century and indeed up to the termination of the First World War.
