ABSTRACT
British employers have become notorious for their lack of collective solidarity. By contrast to their German, Scandinavian and even American counterparts, it is widely agreed, employers’ associations in Britain have typically lacked internal coherence and capacity for sustained offensive action, whether at the peak or the sectoral level. As a result, it is often argued, British employers have proved less successful in defending managerial authority within the enterprise and maintaining orderly bargaining arrangements within the wider labour market than their competitors in many (but by no means all) advanced industrial economies.1
