Is Small Beautiful? Industrial Relations in Small Clothing Firms

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Abstract
The first part of the article traces, briefly, the political and ideological background to the resurgence of interest in small business. Largely unresearched and uncritically adopted, the theory that “small is beautiful” assumes that harmonious industrial relations characterise small firms. The proxy measures of harmony (strike indices, levels of unionisation) commonly used to support the “small is beautiful” school of thought are examined. Secondly, using research in small clothing firms as an example, an investigation into what lies behind statistical returns reveals a reality different from that conventionally assumed to be reflected in the statistics. It is argued that apparent industrial relations harmony, in this case, can be explained by a mixture of the isolation of shop stewards from the union, the weakness of that union, the resulting weakness of workplace trade unionism and the general position of women at work and the role of the family. These factors combine to produce the proxy measures of harmony that have been uncritically accepted in constructing the “small is beautiful” thesis.

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