Strategic human resource management literature emphasizes the potential of pay to secure strategically desirable employee outcomes for the employer. Strategic pay, in contrast with pluralist models of pay determination, assumes an absence of collective bargaining constraints. This article...

The British National Minimum Wage was introduced in 1999 under the guidance of a Low Pay Commission constructed on a basis of 'social partnership'. The article analyses its conduct over its first 10 years from diary data. Key challenges were for it to be independent of government, to have its...

The article analyses the institutional basis and form of the employment contract in Britain using the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey. It assesses the extent to which collective bargaining still regulates pay and non-pay aspects of employment. While collective procedures have declined...

The paper reviews industrial relations developments in Britain during 1999 by assessing how New Labour's policy commitment to encouraging 'partnership' is developing in practice. After a discussion of the Employment Relations Act, it considers the wider influence of European legislation. It then...

We report how trade unions and employers initially reacted to the introduction of the statutory recognition procedure in the Employment Relations Act 1999 (ERA). Interview data indicate that the ERA and the drift of EU influence have acted to shift employer attitudes towards greater approval of...