New Style Agreements at Japanese Transplants in the UK : The Implications for Trade Union Decline

New style agreements are designed to foster co‐operative, conflict‐free industrial relations. Provides an account of what happened at two Japanese manufacturing transplants in the UK where such agreements were in operation. Management at these companies appeared to operate industrial relations in a manner that was not in line with the “spirit and intention” supposed to underlie the agreements. Instead, industrial relations was low‐trust and adversarial. It contributed to employees expressing dissatisfaction with not only the management of industrial relations at each company, but also the union′s performance. An implication of the study is that new style agreements offer little comfort to trade unions as they attempt to arrest a seemingly continuous decline in their fortunes.