This article tests whether diversity, growth, plant size, and export intensity are empirically related to manufacturing employment volatility levels across Canadian regions during the period 1976-1997. Using cross-sectional analysis, we indicate that the regions tending to be more stable are...

A revival of trade unions was widely expected when Blair’s New Labour government took over from the Conservatives in Britain in 1997. This did not occur. Collective bargaining continued to retreat. The paper discusses the implications of the changing economic context for the government’s...

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 paper analyses its conduct over its first ten years from diary data. Key challenges were for it to be independent of government, to have its...

Product markets are the foundation on which industrial relations institutions are built. Trade union strength is partly dependent upon the state of the labour market, but it is imperfections in the product market that are the precondition of their winning benefits for their members. Sectoral...

The paper provides an account of the working of the Low Pay Commission that was established to advise on the introduction of a statutory National Minimum Wage for the United Kingdom. It discusses the way in which the Commission was constituted and the consultation procedures and research methods...

The Low Pay Commission is the institution created in 1997 to introduce Britain’s first National Minimum Wage. The paper places the Commission in historical perspective and provides a summary assessment of the initial impact of the Minimum Wage. It describes and analyses the development of the...

Two UK business services companies are compared both to each other and to their common state-owned industry background in order to assess the implications of trade union recognition and changed bargaining structure. Union recognition had been abandoned by one company under the agenda of...