ANNUAL-REVIEW ARTICLE 1996

For the industrial relations community, 1996 was marked by proposals t o reform the Industrial Tribunal system in its thirtieth year, by the Summer of Discontent II, and by a sudden vogue for the elusive term 's takeholding' after it was used in a speech by the Labour leader, Tony Blair. It was also a pre-election year, and as such raised the prospec t of a change of government and of public policy towards industrial re lations. This review takes its cue from this possibility and is concer ned to set out the main policy themes and options that have been devel oped and refined in recent months. It falls into three main parts. The first two sections are concerned largely with continuity in developme nts; they consider the policy of the Conservative government and its u nsated appetite for deregulation, and the growing expression of concer n about the social costs of that policy which has been manifest in som ething of a moral panic over job insecurity. The middle two sections t hen examine the continuing decline of trade unions, the increasingly u rgent attempts by unions to find a solution to their decline and the, albeit limited, revival of industrial action in the summer and autumn. The final two sections are concerned with alternatives and prospects for change and deal with the influence on industrial relations of Brit ain's membership of the European Union and the employment policy of th e Labour Party. The paper ends with an attempt to conceptualize the rh ythms of change in industrial relations and the prospects for a shift in direction under an incoming Labour government akin to that effected under Margaret Thatcher in the years after 1979.