ABSTRACT
The events of the 1980s cast a harsh critical light on earlier analyses of British labour relations. High unemployment and official hostility to collective bargaining have caused an upheaval which mocks much that was written in the 1970s. From the tumult of those years, when Edward Heath and James Callaghan both had their governments broken by industrial unrest, the achievement of an eerie calm in the late 1980s would have seemed inconceivable. In any comments on John Goldthorpe’s analysis it is difficult to separate criticism that might be fair in the light of the facts then available from an arid carping informed only by the privilege of hindsight.
