The authors provide a case study of a partnership agreement in the Tyneside maritime construction industry. They focus on the role of trade unions and the complex tensions that emerge between regional and local officials and workplace representatives. They argue that agreements can only be...

For many, co‐operatives represent a challenge to existing systems of industrial relations and organisation structure. However, many of the co‐operatives which have been formed in recent years do not approximate to this vision, since they have not been set up from an ideological standpoint....