Collective Actors in Industrial Relations: What Future? Iira World Congress, Track 4 Rapporteur's Report

The term “actors” in industrial relations gained currency in John Dunlop’s Industrial Relations Systems (1958). He proposed that three parties—employers, labor unions, and government-are the key actors in a modern industrial relations system. He also argued that none of these institutions could act in an autonomous or independent fashion. Instead they were shaped, at least to some extent, by their market, technological and political contexts. A longstanding debate in our field has been: How much volition or discretion these actors have in responding to changes in their environment?