ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by outlining the nature and context of industrial relations in Britain in the 1980s and 1990s in order to examine the forces for change and continuity and the forces for progress and reaction. It provides the wider picture to conclude on the prospects and challenges for organized labour in Britain. Consecutive British Social Attitude surveys and the work of Waddington and Whitson show the resilience of collectivism among British workers. The chapter examines the historical evolution of workers' representation in the banking industry before considering the challenges which an enhanced form of collective organization has to meet and how these have been met. The developments in the banking industry are also testament to the changing and dynamic character of trade unionism, class composition and class consciousness, where many, of varying political hues, have wrongly equated the decline of the working class with the decline of the manual section of the working class.
