ABSTRACT
By 1980 Coventry's economy was in sharp decline. The halcyon days of the boom-town image-high wages and almost no unemployment-had gone. Concern over Coventry's economic plight was first brought to prominence in 1968 when a series of Lord Mayor's Conferences was held to investigate the city's difficulties and future prospects. This chapter focuses on the problems of motor and aircraft manufacture, the adverse impact of government regional policies and the relative absence of both the new 'science'-based and service industries. An increase in service-sector employment would have helped to compensate for Coventry's job losses in manufacturing industry. The reports of the Expenditure Committee and CPRS converged closely in identifying bad labour relations as one of the British motor industry's fundamental weaknesses, emphasising in particular the damage caused to production by the exceptionally high incidence of labour disputes. Labour relations problems were almost a running sore in the British motor industry by the early 1970s.
