Unions, unemployment and innovation

The study on which this volume is based was financed by the Economic and Social Research Council over a two-year period from January 1983. It consisted of two types of research: the first was a survey of over 1,000 shop stewards drawn from a variety of unions and industries. The second was four case studies. These were linked to a wider project, undertaken in five countries, focusing upon the disclosure of informa tion to workers and their representatives in the context of new technology.

As in all empirical research we owe many debts: we would like to thank the stewards who took considerable time and care to complete our somewhat lengthy questionnaire and the union officials who commented upon various drafts of the questionnaire and who helped us draw the samples. Similarly, we owe great debts to the stewards, workers and managers who co-operated in our case studies. We hope that our findings will be of some use to these people.

We were also helped by many people within the university. Toni Batstone, our research secretary, did a great deal of the initial analysis of the case studies as well as bearing a sizeable workload in helping to administer the survey. Nick Martin, Keith Grint and Bernie Harris helped with the coding of the questionnaires. Ken MacDonald, Clive Payne and Martin Range gave invaluable advice on statistical, compu ter and word processing. The secretaries at Nuffield, and in particular Trude Hickey, gave invaluable and cheerful help in typing, printing and collating the questionnaires. Finally, the industrial sociology group at Nuffield once more provided a stimulating context in which to work. To all of these, our thanks.