ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the transformation in industrial relations in the half century before 1914. It addresses the question of technological change more directly. The co-operative principle upon which many Lancashire business organizations had been founded since the 1840s reinforced the subsequent development of 'working class limiteds'. The period 1870 to 1890 had witnessed several important trends. These were a shift from North East to South East Lancashire as the main focus of developing trade union organization, the adoption of wage lists, the decline of employer paternalism and the linked rise of employer federations, and the rise of federal bargaining structures. Increasingly tempestuous industrial relations culminated in the 'Brooklands Lockout', the subsequent agreement in 1893 and the institutionalization of bargaining thereafter. Although generalization about trends is difficult where the trade cycle played such an important role, the real wages trend is suggestive of a shift to profits at the expense of wages.
