BOOK REVIEWS
| Published date | 01 July 1977 |
| Date | 01 July 1977 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.1977.tb00091.x |
British
Journal
of
Industrial Relations
Vol.
XV
No.
2
BOOK REVIEWS
Industrial Relations and the Limits oflaw, by Brian Weekes, Michael Mellish, Linda Dickens
and John Lloyd. Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1975, 344 pp., 27.50.
THIS is an interesting book, indeed, virtually unique to date in examining the industrial
effects ofthe Industrial Relations Act 1971. It does not quite live up to the ambition ofits title,
since only
a
few pages (230-32) may be said to attempt directly to discuss the function of law
in industrial relations. These few pages suggest that the authors may not have been
SUE-
ciently equipped to deal with this question which has to be considered against
a
background
of
comparative law and labour relations. Indeed, the very meaning of pages 230-32 is unclear.
The fleeting impression is left that the authors’ credo is that Parliament, democracy, law are
all fair game if one or one’s organisation is powerful enough. But, this surely is not what they
had in mind. A deeper analysis would have been welcome.
Labour lawyers in this country and abroad have fully understood that the role of law in
industrial relations is supportive and secondary. Industrial relationists, however, do not
appear, at least overtly, to have yet recognised that industrial relations theory and practice
themselves are also no more than supportive of the efficiency and viability
of
the organisa-
tions that create and maintain the country’s prosperity. If industrial relations theory and
practice or industrial law adversely affect the eficiency and viability of the units of employ-
ment whose combined efforts determine the nation’s well-being, then something is plainly
wrong. Strikesper
se,
one might interpolate, are neither here nor there as
a
criterion of
organisational and economic effectiveness. They may merely have symptomatic value (cf.
pages 213
ff.).
On reading Industrial Relations and the Limits of Law one is struck by the unevenness of
the judgments that are made on the various aspects of the wide-ranging 1971 statute, the
amended and reshaped provisions of which are now in the Trade Union and Labour Relations
Acts 1974-76, and the Employment Protection Act 1975 which, ironically from the viewpoint
of the authors’ general somewhat anti-law thesis, have introduced an even bigger dose of law,
albeit with a revised orientation, into British industrial relations-and there may be more to
come. One looks in vain, however, for any discussion in the book of the single most important
development which has occurred in this respect in recent years, namely, the transformation
of the attitude of the T.U.C. towards the role of law in industrial relations.
The book is packed with information and observations. Let me pick out for comment a few
points which seem to be of some importance and which will help to convey the
book’s
general
flavour.
In considering unfair dismissal (Chapter
l),
the authors’ interpretation of the statistics of
the
first
year of cases omits the fairly obvious point that, in the public sector and in large
private sector organisations, the resources exist to ensure a correct application of the law; if
money is no object, one may either hold back from dismissing entirely or wait to ensure
correct processing (cf. page 15). Again, in relation to the substance of the law, the authors
support (page 27) the now discredited view that industrial relations should decide cases on the
basis
of
what the tribunal members think they would have done, had they been the manager
or employer, in the light of that accurate science, hindsight. Equally, they fail to perceive the
importance of striking
a
balance between protecting employees and not weakening the
effectiveness and viability of a unit of employment-what the authors choose
to
call a
‘managerial perspective’ (see pages 28-9). Recent economic events have underlined the
correctness of the National Industrial Relations Court approach, now confirmed by the
Employment Appeal Tribunal. In referring to the possibility of an exemption order under the
statute for a negotiated disciplinary procedure (see page 31), it might have been worth
pointing out that the reason why unions and management did not, do not, and, in my opinion,
will not agree
to
seek an exemption order is quite simply that such an order confers no
particular benefit on the union while it would possibly also tie down management. British
unions and management are not to be confused with the Americans who devised their own
labour (rights) arbitration system with reipstatement as the conventional remedy for dismis-
sal without good cause. In the book as a whole one misses the wider perspective.
294
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