Industrial Relations

Abstract

The institutional mechanisms that regulate labour relations will be all the more effective that they make sense within the cultural universes of meaning of the negotiating partners. This close linkage is illustrated by two contrasting situations. The first, which stands as a counterexample, takes place in a French territory of the South Pacific where transferred institutions induce deep misunderstandings between managers from metropolitan France and Oceanian trade unionists. The second is located in the United States. In that case, the bargaining system fits the American interpretations of labour relations in terms of market relations. This coherence sheds light on the performance and longevity of a bargaining system that is unparalleled in the rest of the world.