What is Good Industrial Relations?

The emergence in the post‐war period of industrial relations as a rapidly growing field of study was a consequence of the subject becoming increasingly defined as a “problem”. During the 1950s and 60s the increasing level of strike activity, especially unofficial and unconstitutional strikes, attracted widespread attention. Low labour productivity and wage inflation were also widely seen as important industrial relations problems. These problems attracted the attention of academics from a wide variety of disciplines who developed the study of industrial relations in a way which largely reflected this preoccupation with problems.