Great Britain: implications of Scottish independence for employment and industrial relations assessed

The forthcoming referendum on whether Scotland should break away from Britain raises the prospect of changes in employment and industrial relations. The greatest prospect for change arises as an increase in wage competition and as a result of government policy on the social wage while little change is expected in the structures of collective bargaining and union themselves.
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The referendum on whether Scotland should break away from the rest of the United Kingdom (England, Wales and Northern Ireland) takes place on 18 September 2014. Recent polling evidence suggests that a vote for independence is increasingly likely. If independence does occur, a number of powers and areas of law which are still currently reserved to the Westminster parliament in London will become the responsibility of the Holyrood parliament in Edinburgh. Among these are the management of the...

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