International Labour Review , Vol. 158 (2019), No. 3
Copyright © The authors 2019
Journal compilation and translation © International Labour Organization 2019
* Conservatoire national des arts et métiers (Cnam), Laboratoire interdisciplinaire pour
la sociologie économique (Lise), Centre d’études de l’emploi et du travail (CEET), email:
thomas.amosse@lecnam.net. ** Centre Maurice Halbwachs (CMH), École normale supérieure
(ENS), Centre national de la recherche scientifque (CNRS), email: philippe.askenazy@ens.fr;
*** Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques (INSEE), email: martin.
chevalier@insee.fr; **** Cnam, Laboratoire interdisciplinaire de recherches en sciences de
l’action (Lirsa), CEET, email: christine.erhel@lecnam.net (corresponding author); ***** Uni-
versity of Lille, Centre lillois d’études et de recherches sociologiques et économiques (Clersé),
CEET, email: heloise.petit@univ-lille.fr; ****** University of Paris-Diderot – Paris 7, Labora-
toire dynamiques sociales et recomposition des espaces (LADYSS), email: antoine.reberioux@
gmail.com. This research received funding from the Direction de l’animation de la recherche,
des études et des statistiques (Dares) of the French Ministry of Labour for the purposes of
the analysis of the data from the REPONSE survey. The authors would furthermore like to
thank Dares for providing access to the REPONSE survey data and the UK Data Archive,
a British body for the management of data from research in the social sciences, for provid-
ing access to the WERS survey data. They would also like to thank John Forth for his help
in using the WERS survey.
Responsibility for opinions expressed in signed articles rests solely with their authors,
and publication does not constitute an endorsement by the ILO.
Industrial relations and adjustments
to the crisis: A comparative
micro-statistical analysis
of France and Great Britain
Thomas AMOSSÉ,* Philippe ASKENAZY,** Martin CHEVALIER,***
Christine ERHEL,**** Héloïse PETIT*****
and Antoine REBÉRIOUX******
Abstract. In this comparative study, the authors analyse the relationships be-
tween industrial relations and workforce or wage adjustments in response to
the 2007–08 crisis, using two highly comparable establishment-level surveys
conducted in Great Britain (WERS) and France (REPONSE) in 2010–12.
Notwithstanding contextual differences in the countries’ productive systems and
the timing and impact of the crisis, the relationships between industrial relations
and adjustment strategies appear to have been similar (trade union presence
not preventing adjustments). Differences in industrial relations are therefore not
found to provide an explanation for the different modes of adjustment observed
at the macroeconomic level.