Global Market Pressures in a Regional Context: Experiences from Field Research in the Industrial Region of South Wales, UK

In the globalized marketplace, it is generally acknowledged that manufacturing in developed economies is under severe pressure, and the UK Trade and Industry Secretary recently conceded that the sector in Britain as a whole is currently ‘in recession’ (Financial Times, 06.11.01: 4). All toofrequently, discussion of global industrial restructuring is conducted on the basis of corporate policy and its economic ramifications, in a reified debate that effectively ignores or devalues the existence and contribution of the human actors within workplaces, who are actually engaged in the task of creating corporate wealth. This chapter offers a less depersonalized view of the pressures on the actors involved in industrial relations in manufacturing workplaces, who are located within a particular region of a developed economy, namely the UK. It aims to illustrate how globalization has been used as a powerful managerial rationale for changes to working practice by focusing workplace trade union representatives’ minds on their members’ vulnerability in the global marketplace for labour and thereby enlisting their cooperation and negating any form of overt protest against change. (See also Tempel in this volume for the effect of globalization on collective bargaining relationships). The chapter will first describe the regional context of the research and the case study factories prior to discussing the use of globalization as a managerial rationale for change.