ABSTRACT
The twentieth century has been a period of relative economic decline in Britain compared to other industrialised nations-the standard of living has risen, but has not kept pace with growth in many other countries. It has been common to attribute part of this decline to the ‘British worker question’. This has become ‘a jingle so familiar that some people just could not get it out of their heads’—the tune ran ‘British workers did not work hard enough’. (Nichols, 1986: xi). The most recent Competitiveness White Paper (DTI, 1998b: 11), however, puts the onus firmly on employers as well as employees: ‘skill levels…are too low across too much of the workforce. Too many British companies have low ambitions. Too few match world best practice.’ Given our findings to date, it is apparent that the social relations of production cannot be overlooked. Many researchers have focused on this in the past, but of late there has been heightened interest in the contribution that the character of employment relations makes to workplace performance. The question is not just a narrow economic one, but ranges more widely to encompass equity considerations and the health and well-being of the workforce.
