human resource management

The strike activities showed a decrease trend in recent years. Seen from the data of UK Office for National Statistics (2013) from 1974 to 2012. From 1974 to 1979, there were approximately 2500 strikes recorded in every year, and the total number of working days lost is more than 12 million annually. From 1980 to 1989, the amount of strikes reduced more than a half to nearly 1000 strikes each year, and the total number of working days lost is reduced to 6 million annually. The strike activities still showed a continually reducing during the 1990s and 2000s, and in 2010 the incidence of recorded strike activity reach to a historical bottom, only 88 strikes was recorded in that year and the total working days lost is 365,000 days. The decline in strike activity over recent years sparks a heated argument that conflict between employers and workers is no longer a significant feature of current human resource management. This article will also discuss this topic and find out if the conflict is still the significant feature of current human resource management.

Stroh, Northcraft & Neale (2003) defined that conflict is the opposition interaction within or between interdependent individuals or entities when the goals, purposes, and values are opposite and who perceive the other entity or entities as potentially interfering with the realisation of these goals. Rourke & Collins (2008) mentioned that the uncertain economy will in a great degree contribute to the conflict between employees and employers. Strike activities are a kind of severe consequences shaped by conflicts. Looking back on the history of strike activities, strikes always sudden burst after long periods of dormancy, thus the sudden spurted strikes are also called strike waves. (Friedman, 2007) The Russian economist Kondratieff(1935) developed a regular economic cycle, called the Kondratieff Long wave which is based on the price behaviour included wages, interest rates, raw material prices, foreign