Between 1945-1980, there existed a social compact between the three main parties involved. However, from the onset one or more of the three parties contested this social compact almost permanently. As a result, about 1980 the social compact had been eroded significantly and seemed no longer viable. This doesn’t justify the conclusion drawn by different experts that the New Deal and its aftermath until 1980 should be considered as unique and as an exception in the history of American labor and industrial relations. Rather, it can be contended that if the New Deal had in time adopted more elements of the preceding factory system and welfare capitalism of large firms a less exceptional and also more linear and gradual evolution of the post-war American system of labor and industrial relations would have been more likely.