ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with an outline of some of the key types of skills, workers and labour processes, detail the social innovations in the corridor, and evaluates the attractions of the area for the firms, ending with a brief discussion of local reactions to growth. While the industry has been welcomed by a pro-growth coalition in South Wales, it has received a much more mixed reception in the most successful parts of the corridor. The vanguard position in management-labour relations in the corridor was dominated by seven large North American firms, all of which have chiefly front-end activities in the corridor. While a small band of firms in South Wales found it necessary, if difficult, to legitimize the uncoupling of pay from the going rate for the job, most firms in the corridor had accomplished this without any great difficulty, the main exceptions being in some of the manufacturing operations.
