Prospects beyond “partnership”: the labour process and politics of the UK military industry, 1970-2025

Briley, G ORCID: 0009-0007-2170-5391, Eastwood, J, Rogaly, K and Thomas, C (2026) 'Prospects beyond “partnership”: the labour process and politics of the UK military industry, 1970-2025.' Global Labour Journal, 17 (3). pp. 175-191.

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Abstract

This paper examines shifts in the labour process and politics of the UK military industry from the 1970s to the present, moving beyond depictions of the decline of labour militancy as simply an effect of deindustrialisation. While the sector’s employment base has contracted sharply since 1980, military spending in real terms has increased, and the industry has remained unusually protected through state subsidy, procurement and research and development funding. The weakening of arms workers’ power is therefore explained less by macro-trends alone than by a management and state offensive that reorganised production and targeted union organising. This helped to install a class-collaborationist “partnership” model, corroding associational power and displacing traditions of militant workplace democracy.Drawing on 21 semi-structured interviews, alongside published and archival accounts, the paper traces: rank-and-file conversion struggles in the 1970s; the “long 1990s” of restructuring, privatisation and political decomposition; and the current conjuncture in which capital-intensive, supply-chain-dependent militarism creates new vulnerabilities and openings. It argues that the politicisation of arms exports, alongside the sector’s expansion into technology and higher education, presents conditions for renewed rank-and-file power.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	military industry, labour process, industrial relations, rank-and-file
Date Deposited:	14 Oct 2026 11:49
Last Modified:	14 Oct 2026 11:49
ISSN:	1918-6711
URN:	https://researchspace.bathspa.ac.uk/id/eprint/17953

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