Employment relations matters is a ten chapter text with the double intention reflected in its title: to bring people up to date with the matters that the study of employment relations deals with and to explain why they matter. It has two main audiences in mind. The first are those who teach and study in the area. The second are practitioners and policy makers, helping to explain why it has extended chapter summaries and is not over-burdened with academic debates.

Employment relations matters is available, to download in PDF format, on the internet under a Creative Commons’ Attribution/Non-commercial/Share-alike Licence. This means that, as well as being free to make use of the text for teaching and research, anyone will be able to adapt, extend and improve it, helping to create the cross-national framework the subject needs for further development.

Preface

Introduction: studying employment relations

Why employment relations matter

Coming to terms with the employment relationship

Institutions - the stuff of employment relations

Negotiation – breathing life into the employment relationship

Power – a matter of prepositions

Changing expressions of conflict

Understanding management

Trade unions and collective bargaining – the end of an era?

 
Public policy - balancing flexibility and security?

Appendix The UK in comparative perspective

Keith Sisson, Emeritus Professor of Industrial Relations