ABSTRACT
The statistics of industrial conflict present the would-be scientist with a difficult dilemma. Incomplete and sometimes arbitrary in design, they must be regarded as lacking in reliability and being of very dubious validity for many purposes.1 On the other hand, they are all we have; the only tangible thermometer of organized and overt industrial conflict and, as such, central to government policy-making. Regardless of whether or not they are perceived as the great unsolved social problem of the age, strikes are a dramatic and fascinating aspect of industrial relations and trends in strikes are a focal point of almost any analysis of industrial relations systems at work. The only sensible way out of this dilemma is to be realistic. If strike statistics are inescapable and necessary tools of analysis, then let them be used as resourcefully and systematically as possible. Whenever they are capable of honest refinement, let them be so treated. Where they can be supplemented by alternative sources of information, let them be so embellished.
