Rather than legal enactment and collective bargaining being the main engines of the 'Europeanisation' of industrial relations, benchmarking and 'soft' forms of regulation are increasingly to the fore. This article traces the origins of benchmarking from management tool to regulatory instrument,...

Commercial firms in industries once under public ownership generally have well-organised trade unions with significant disruptive capacity, yet overt confict is often low despite major change. This paper examines the experience of two major rail and energy companies after privatisation. The...