Striking a Bargain

"In this book, the author questions many of the commonly held assumptions concerning the nature of industrial relations during the early nineteenth century. Drawing upon a large amount of new evidence he shows convincingly that the shopfloors of industrialising Britain were the sites of continuous bargaining over issues such as wages, work-loads and working conditions - bargains whose existence long pre-dated the so-called mid-Victorian compromise. In doing so the author challenges the traditional chronology of the origins of Britain's industrial relations system and recovers the history of early nineteenth-century collective bargaining and arbitration systems." "Drawing from theories and methodologies from the social sciences, this book will be essential reading for all historians of the industrial revolution."--BOOK JACKET.