Industrial Struggle: New Directions in Social Research

Abstract

Studies of labour struggle span a wide range of analytical and methodological standpoints. At one extreme one finds quantitative modelling of strike behaviour while at the other there are the sociological accounts of specific incidents of conflict. Clearly, the choice of research strategy and methodology depend upon the issues addressed and the disciplinary context from which such questions emerge. Our concern is to understand and explain variations in inter-industry patterns of industrial action. By working at an intermediate level of analysis we hope to steer between the Scylla of extreme abstraction (evidenced by mcst national level strike studies) and the Charybdis of interpretive empiricism (exemplified by many plant level case studies of strikes).