Hugh Armstrong Clegg

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Hugh Armstrong Clegg (born May 22, 1920 in Truro , † December 9, 1995 in Warwick ) was a British industrial relations expert and historian of the British trade unions . Together with Allan Flanders and Alan Fox , he founded the so-called Oxford School of Industrial Relations , a school of thought that is scientifically close to the system theory of industrial relations founded by John T. Dunlop and that is politically ascribed to pluralism .

life and work

Clegg was brought up in the spirit of Methodism ; his father was a Methodist clergyman. At age 12 he attended the Methodist Kingswood School , a public school in Bath / Somerset, England. In his early youth he joined the Communist Party of Great Britain , but left it again in 1947. With a scholarship, he was initially able to study Classics at Magdalen College, Oxford University. The Second World War interrupted his studies for five years, which he spent in the British Army. After the war he returned to Oxford and took the Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) course, which is known for this university . At the suggestion of the Fabian Socialist GDH Cole , he then devoted himself to studying industrial relations and in 1949 became a Fellow at Oxford's Nuffield College .

Clegg was an influential member of several political commissions set up to reform and shape British industrial relations : the Royal Commission on Trade Unions and Employers' Associations ( Donovan Commission ) (1965–1968), the National Board for Prices and Incomes (1965–1971), the Civil Service Arbitration Tribunal (1968–1971), the Standing Commission on Pay Comparability (1979–1980).

In 1967 he was appointed to the newly established Professorship of Industrial Relations at the University of Warwick / Coventry , where he taught until his retirement in 1979. Under his directorate, the Industrial Relations Research Unit (IRRU) was founded in Warwick , whose research activities made sociological company and workplace studies an integral part of British industrial relations. Eric Batstone's qualitative company case studies ( Shop Stewards in Action: The Organization of Workplace Conflict and Accommodation ) were exemplary .

Clegg is the author of numerous studies including the three-volume work A History of British Trade Unions since 1889 . His book The System of Industrial Relations in Great Britain served as a key teaching text during his lifetime.

Fonts

  • Industrial Democracy and Nationalization. A Study Prepared for the Fabian Society . Blackwell, Oxford, 1951
  • The System of Industrial Relations in Great Britain . Blackwell, Oxford 1953, reprints 1970 and 1979
  • A New Approach to Industrial Democracy . Blackwell, Oxford 1960
  • General Union in a Changing Society . Blackwell, Oxford 1964
  • How to Run an Incomes Policy, and Why We Made Such a Mess of the Last One . Heineman, London 1971
  • Pluralism in Industrial Relations . In: British Journal of Industrial Relations , vol. 13/1975, issue 3, pp. 309-316
  • Trade Unionism under Collective Bargaining. A Theory based on Comparisons of Six Countries . Blackwell, Oxford 1978
  • A History of British Trade Unions since 1889 .
    • Vol I: 1889–1910 (together with Alan Fox and AF Thompson), Clarendon Press, Oxford 1964
    • Vol II: 1911-1933 , Clarendon Press, Oxford 1985
    • Vol. III: 1934-1951 , Clarendon Press, Oxford 1994

literature

  • AF Thompson: Clegg, Hugh Armstrong (1920–1995), industrial relations expert . In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
  • Peter Ackers: Collective Bargaining as Industrial Democracy: Hugh Clegg and the Political Foundations of British Industrial Relations Pluralism . In: British Journal of Industrial Relations . Vol. 45 (2007), issue 1, pp. 77-101
  • Peter Ackers: The Changing Systems of British Industrial Relations, 1954–1979: Hugh Clegg and the Warwick Sociological Turn . In; British Journal of Industrial Relations . Vol. 49 (2011), issue 2, pp. 306-330
  • Peter Ackers: Game Changer: Hugh Clegg's Role in Drafting the 1968 Donovan Report and Redefining the British Industrial Relations Policy-Problem . In: Historical Studies in Industrial Relations . No. 35 (2014), pp. 63-88
  • Keith Sisson: In Praise of Collective Bargaining: The Enduring Significance of Hugh Clegg's 'Trade Unionism under Collective Bargaining' . In: Historical Studies in Industrial Relations , No. 36 (2015), pp. 137–158

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b William Brown: Obituary: Professor Hugh Clegg , The Independent, December 15, 1995
  2. ^ Peter Ackers: The Changing Systems of British Industrial Relations, 1954-1979: Hugh Clegg and the Warwick Sociological Turn . In British Journal of Industrial Relations . Vol. 49 (2011), issue 2, pp. 306-330, here: p. 306.
  3. ↑ Eric Batstone, Ian Boraston, Stephen Frenkel: Shop Stewards in Action: The Organization of Workplace Conflict and Accommodation . Blackwell, Oxford 1979.
personal data
SURNAME Clegg, Hugh Armstrong
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Clegg, Hugh
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British industrial relations expert and historian of the British trade unions
DATE OF BIRTH May 22, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Truro
DATE OF DEATH December 9, 1995
Place of death Warwick