'Internal politics of employer organizations. The Engineering Employers' Federation, 1896-1939' in S Tolliday & J Zeitlin (eds), Power to Manage? Employers and industrial relations in comparative historical perspective

Notes:

Reviews the effectiveness of UK employers' 'collective solidarity' in defending managerial authority and maintaining orderly bargaining arrangements, 1896-1939, through examination of the national bargaining arrangements of the EEF. Notwithstanding its 'undoubted achievements', the EEF is seen as divided by sector, region and inter-firm differences and not easy to mobilise. 'The EEF's freedom of manoeuvre in implementing ... strategy was circumscribed by internal dissent as well as by unions' inability to deliver their members' compliance with national agreements. The reassertion of managerial authority through a renewed lock out in 1922 was thus a second best solution to the stalemate in national negotiation, and the Federation's resounding victory over the unions paradoxically laid the foundation for the subsequent decay of employer solidity by undermining the leverage of the central authorities on both sides over their members'