On Industrial Relations Ethics
Introduction The emergence of modern industrial society entailed processes that upturned the relations of humankind with nature, and quite importantly; the relations of human production in particular and social intercourse in general. The industrial revolution of the late 18th and 19th century transformed human life beyond the wildest dream anybody could have had for millennia. On one hand, "(f)or the first time in history, the living standards of the masses of ordinary people...begun to undergo sustained growth ... Nothing remotely like this economic behaviour has happened before" (Lucas, 2002 pp 109-10). On the other hand, the social progress it wrought was on the bent backs of overworked employees deprived of the rights to combine in defence of their wellbeing and dignity. With the industrial revolution arose industrial relations, as practice. Modern industrial society rested on the establishment of modern/wage-based employment relations on a large, i.e. industrial scal...