Beyond Pluralism: Reconciling the British industrial relations tradition and Habermas' theory of communicative action

Abstract

The thesis opens with a discussion of the theoretical influences on British industrial relations (IR), notably the approach known as ‘pluralism’. It then considers how these influences have been manifest in practice since the late 1960s, analysing IR policy documents produced by the peak organizations of capital and labour and by governments and political parties. The discussion refers mainly to the British case, but some recent developments in Ireland are also considered. Pluralist IR theory is shown to have hindered the development of responses to neoliberal attacks on the principle of worker self-organization. It is argued that, at least on an abstract theoretical level, an adequate response would have been to accept that the success of enterprises represents a shared interest of employers and employees, and that bargaining should therefore be abandoned in favour of deliberative forms of joint decision-making. This logic is reflected to some extent in recent union policies, especially in Ireland. However, a more determined change of direction has been inhibited by the theoretical inheritance of pluralism, principally its implication that market forces are not objective and autonomous but are an expression of values and interests inimical to the socio-political aims of the labour movement. The second part of the thesis is devoted to demonstrating that this need not be the case. The argument is based on a critique and reconstruction of Habermas’ Theory of Communicative Action. It is shown that although the employment relationship is to some extent ‘media-steered’, communicative interaction between employer and employee — interaction based on consensually-defined and thereby valid norms — is nonetheless possible. This implies that workers can participate positively in the definition and redefinition of the economic and administrative systems of capitalist society without thereby necessarily validating the existing aims and values of capital. The thesis concludes with a discussion of the implications of this finding for the theory and practice of industrial relations and the future of trade unionism.