Industrial relations—a European perspective

Both the challenges afforded by membership of the Common Market, and the fact that British industrial relations have for several years now been something of a problem area, make it useful to see what can be learned from industrial relations experience in comparable countries in Western Europe. Clearly a short article cannot hope to describe and analyse the complex systems involved but it can serve to point to some of the more significant trends that are to be observed and to hint at the forces underlying them. First it is useful to differentiate between the broad characteristics of the British and continental systems.