Debates about Britain's productivity performance have often drawn attention to the roles played by working practices and employment relations. In the 1980s and 1990s, trade unions were a prime focus; more recently, attention has turned to high-involvement management (HIM) practices (also...

This paper uses the 1990-1998 Workplace Industrial Relations Survey Panel to analyse the impact of unions on employment growth among private sector workplaces in Britain. The growth rate among unionised workplaces was roughly 3-4% per annum lower than among non-unionised workplaces, "ceteris...