ABSTRACT
The increased dispute-liability of British industry during the past decade also contrasts with an apparent world tendency for labour unrest to decline. Technological change has affected all the bigger British car firms, at least, as well as all the different national automobile industries, in pretty much the same degree; but they have very different liabilities to labour disputes. Alternatively there is the view that strikes are only one expression of a pervasive industrial dissatisfaction which is likely to emerge also in high accident rates, absenteeism and labour turnover. Labour disputes appear to have been the product of specific discontents rather than a generalized disgruntlement. The specific circumstance of labour in the British car firms seems even more relevant. A large part of the car firms’ high strike-incidence has apparently represented the industry’s substitute for formally-agreed means of dealing with recurrent labour surplus.
