Question

What were the principal causes of industrial disputes and strikes between management and workers in Britain Motor Industry from 1945?

Answer 1

Britain experienced a shifting trend of industrial dispute between 1945 and 1977, with strikes rising in frequency and number of participants particularly between 1968 and 1974.
The same era also saw the rise and re-emergence of other strategies that had historically been absent from labor relations, including political protests, mass pickets and factory occupations.These were followed by an unparalleled growth in union membership and participation, with a 250% increase in worker leaders from 1961 to 1980.

Like most other strike-prone classes – miners, dockers, shipbuilders – concentrated in sectors that had been shrinking since before World War Two, it was car workers who most frequently figured in deteriorating narratives and faced contrasts with their more productive counterparts overseas.
Consequently, the experiences of industrial agitation by car workers theoretically provide us with valuable insights into the essence of labor militancy in the age of declinism.

The militant trade union as an entity is lost, as is the real experience of forming and maintaining industrial organization and protest.
In this definition, numbers of trade unionists and strikes are increasing and growing, dropping and decreasing, as if they were being pushed by a tidal force, totally lost to the organization of their leaders.

Furthermore, it appears that a substantial number of strikes ostensibly over wages actually incorporated certain grievances, simply because money was the most important problem that workers could complain over. Even when strikes were primarily motivated by wages, the considerations involved in deciding if collective action could be justified financially were so complex.