The decline of the British tyre industry - Newcastle University

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institutional arrangements to legitimise company level interventions on a consensual basis. 119 The attempt by some members of the SWP to use ‘efficiency dialogues’ to intervene at the plant level failed because it contravened the British tradition of ‘voluntarism’ in industrial relations. This was based on the complete autonomy of the bargaining parties and their opposition to outside intervention. 120 The Industrial Strategy had encouraged an ‘open’ style of management and changes in work practices to improve competitiveness. However, the employers sought productivity improvements but could not guarantee job security as the industry was contracting. The tyre companies were keen to protect their competitive positions and restricted the role of the SWP to communication. The disclosure of information at plant level was used to assist the rationalisation of the industry. Furthermore, the political climate had also changed as the new Conservative Government had no commitment to its predecessor’s Industrial Strategy. In terms of the McKay and Grant framework the Industrial Strategy did not meet the first socio/political condition. The SWPs were a constituent part of a ‘very weak institutional structure’. 121 The government played a minor role in the policy work of the Tyre Industry SWP. The more important body was the BRMA which had developed extensive relationships with the policy makers. A coordinated strategy for the vehicle and tyre industry was superfluous because the multinational companies operated on a European not a national basis. There is no evidence that a more dirigiste strategy would have proved more successful. The Industrial Strategy failed to satisfy the second condition because of the opposition of investors. Kirby argued that the industrial strategy experiments of the 1970s were destined to fail because they were not favourably viewed by the international financial community on which Britain depended to maintain financial solvency at a time of acute balance of payments problems, and by industrialists suspicious of socialist policies. 122 References Balogh, Thomas. “Comment on Stout.” In De-industrialisation, edited by Frank Blackaby. London: Heinemann, 1979: 196-201.
Bhaskar, Krish. The Future of the UK Motor Industry. London: Kogan Page, 1979. Crafts, Nick. “Reversing relative economic decline? The 1980s in historical perspective.” Oxford Review of Economic Policy 7 No. 3 (1991): 81-98. Driver, Ciaran. “Import substitution and the work of the sector working parties.” Applied Economics 15 (1983): 165-176. Economist Intelligence Unit. “The UK tyre market.” Rubber Trends 99, September (1993): 23-50. Elbaum, Bernard, and William Lazonick. “An institutional perspective on British decline.” In The Decline of the British Economy, edited by Bernard Elbaum and William Lazonick. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986. Elliot, David. “Tyres Sector Working Party: Case Study.” South Bank Polytechnic, undated. Fishwick, Francis. A Study of the Evolution of Concentration in the Manufacture and Supply of Tyres, sparking Plugs, and Motor vehicle Accumulators for the United Kingdom. A report prepared for the Directorate-General for competition of the Commission of the European Communities. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 1977. Flanders, Allan D. “Trade unions and the force of tradition.” In Management and Unions, edited by Allan Flanders. London: Faber and Faber, 1970. Forester, Tom. “Neutralising the Industrial strategy.” In What Went Wrong. Explaining the Fall of the Labour Government, edited by Ken Coates. Nottingham: Spokesman, 1979: 74-94. Grant, Wyn. The Political Economy of Industrial Policy. London: Butterworth, 1982. Grant, Wyn. “Appraising selective financial assistance to industry: a review of institutions and methodologies in the United Kingdon, Sweden and West Germany.” Journal of Public Policy 3 No.4 (1983): 369-395. Grant, Wyn. Business and Politics in Britain. London: Macmillan, 1987. Grant, Wyn. “Government and manufacturing industry since 1900.” In Competitiveness and the State, edited by Geoffrey Jones and M.W. Kirby. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1991: 100-119. Grant, Wyn, and Stephen Wilks. “British industrial policy: structural change, policy inertia.” Journal of
Page 1 and 2: Discussion Papers in Management and
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Page 5 and 6: institutional constraints that impa
Page 7 and 8: weight of throughput per man hour)
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Page 25 and 26: 10 Grant, “Government,” 101. 11
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Page 29 and 30: 119 Wilks, Industrial Policy, 268.

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