Industrial Relations in Western Europe: An Era of Ambiguity?

In western Europe, as in the United States, the 1980s saw major challenges to established institutions of industrial relations. Managements, faced with intensified competitive pressure, have taken the initiative; union have been on the defensive. Deregulation and decentralization have been the recurrent themes of both practitioners and academic analysts. For some commentators, national distinctiveness is giving way to convergence, encouraged in part by moves toward the Single European Market. This article develops a more skeptical perspective on recent trends.