History of Work and Labour Relations in the Royal Dockyards

Focusing on the work and labour history of shipyard workers in the Royal Dockyards, this text examines the question of state employment and the specific characteristics of that pattern of industrial relations. It encompasses discussions of the nature of work and resistance to forms of authority. Particular forms of control are available to the employer which are absent from the experience of the private sector. In addition, the state is often under pressure to act as a model employer, and this can lead to tensions between this objective and the need for financial constraint and public surveillance of the uses of taxation.

Day, Ann; Lunn, Kenneth

From impressment to task work - strikes and disruption in the Royal Dockyards, 1668-1788; government and community - the changing nature of the dockyard dispute, 1790-1840; class rule - the hegemonic role of the Royal Dockyard schools, 1840-1906; trade unionism in Portsmouth Dockyard, 1880-1914; change and continuity; continuity and change - labour relations in the Royal Dockyards; neither colonial nor historic - workers' organization at a Scottish dockyard, 1945-1995; the way forward? - the Royal Dockyards since 1945.