Ending “Them and Us”: Profit‐related Pay and Promotion of a Community of Interest in Industry

The 1986 Green Paper on Profit‐related Pay (PRP) saw the initiative as contributing to the elimination of the “them and us mentality” from British industry. Considers the impact of PRP and shows the Green Paper’s view to be optimistic. This conclusion derives from an examination of the PRP scheme and its context within government policies on taxation, employment, industrial democracy and industrial relations. These are shown to be exacerbating the inequalities of reward and power out of which the categories “them and us” are structured. Given this, it is difficult to see PRP promoting industrial unitarism.