lndustrial conflict and strategies of conflict resolution in developed societies

Abstract

At the beginning of the 1890ies the industrialized countries of Western and Central Europe were hit by extensive strike waves. Spontaneous, eruptive and unpredictable as they were they took on the form of veritable rebellions against the new industrial order. This is best illustrated by violent outbreaks in the Bohemian, Moravian and Silesian collieries where a labor force mostly of rural origin protested against accumulated humiliation as weil as they defended their traditional notions of „honour“ and „self-respect“. Here, the process of industrialization is assessed first and foremost as a regional phenomenon, decisivly effecting constitution, differentiation, structure and capacity for conflict of the respective employers and employees. The formation of organisational structures and the institutionalization of industrial conflict constituted decisive changes in industrial societies. Extended lock-outs and „national strikes“ adopted mass-character and gained concrete political dimensions threatening the maintainance of the social production as a whole.