The latest news from BUIRA
Conference theme: Contemporary Issues in Equality and Diversity
Wednesday 22 September 2021 10am
The conference theme, ‘Contemporary Issues in Equality and Diversity’ is designed to capture research being undertaken from any discipline that captures contemporary issues in Equality and Diversity from a range of perspectives.
Keynote: Professor Sian Moore "Systems or identities – how do we address equality in our work and in the University".
Papers will be presented covering the following themes: Stereotyping, Discrimination in the Workplace, Discrimination in Society and Education.
The conference is free to attend. Tickets are available via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/diversity-interest-group-autumn-conference-tickets-169727227707
21st September 2021
The Association of Industrial Relations Academics of Australia and New Zealand (AIRAANZ) 2022 Conference will be hosted by the Sydney Employment Relations Research Group (SERRG) and the Discipline of Work and Organisational Studies (WOS) at the University of Sydney Business School from Wednesday 9 to Friday 11 February 2022 (Australian Eastern Daylight Time).
Due to the ongoing uncertainty created by COVID and state and international border closures, the conference will be an online-only event.
The call for abstracts has also been extended to 29 October 2021.
The conference will involve a workshop for higher degree research students on Wednesday 9 February, with most other activities taking place on Thursday 10 and Friday 11 February.
The theme of the conference is: ‘Work Not As Usual'. This theme allows us to explore key issues for employment relations research including, but not limited to, the following:
We now invite submissions for the following:
Abstracts of papers to be presented in general conference sessions should be 250 words max and include the author/s name, affiliations and contact details, research question, methodological approach, theoretical focus and main conclusions.
Abstracts of papers to be presented at the higher degree research student workshop should be 250 words max and include the author name, affiliations and contact details, research question, methodological approach, theoretical focus and main conclusions. Higher degree research students whose abstracts are accepted will be asked to submit a short paper (2,000 words max) by 9 January 2022. This short paper will help discussants to prepare constructive feedback.
Please use the submission form: https://business.sydney.edu.au/events/2022/airaanz
Questions regarding the conference should be sent to: airaanz2022.conference@sydney.edu.au
Members of the conference organising committee: Marian Baird, Stephen Clibborn, Rae Cooper, Bradon Ellem, Frances Flanagan, Meraiah Foley, Dimitria Groutsis, Sunghoon Kim, Angela Knox, Susan McGrath-Champ, Alex Veen, Mark Westcott, Chris F Wright
21st September 2021
We are delighted to announce that we will be in conversation with Jane Holgate, scholar, union educator and activist discussing her book: 'Arise. Power, Strategy and Union Resurgence.
Drawing on history and case studies of unions developing and using power effectively, this book offers strategies for moving beyond the pessimism that prevails in much of today's union movement. By placing power analysis back at the heart of workers' struggle, Jane shows us that transformational change is not only possible, but within reach.
We will be joined by an amazing panel chaired by Michael McNeil (national official at UCU):
And, if you sign up we will give you a discount code which will save you 30% off the paperback edition of the book!
The session is live, participatory and will be a mix of panel discussions and break out rooms.
Takes place over ZOOM.
Thanks -the Ella Baker School.
21st September 2021
Extended Seminar – Wednesday 6 October (14.00-16.00)
Workers’ Experiences of Working from Home during the Covid-19 Pandemic – Liberation or Incarceration?’
Booking required: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/buira-scotland-and-the-department-of-work-employment-organisation-unive-tickets-173605457597
Homeworking and teleworking have been the focus of considerable academic, policy maker and practitioner attention for more than two decades, since the technological means existed to facilitate ‘remote’ working. Yet, by late-2019, only just over 5% of the UK workforce reported that they were mainly working from home (WFH), according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS, 2020). A general observation was that WFH had been largely the preserve of higher-grade professional, technical, managerial, creative and academic employees. From March 2020, though, the Covid-19 pandemic brough an abrupt change that resulted in unprecedented millions of clerical workers transitioned from the workplace, the majority with no prior WFH experience. According to one study the proportion of those WFH rose from 5.7 per cent of the workforce immediately before the Spring lockdown to 43.1% in April 2020 (Felstead, 2021). While the proportion WFH fell to around one-in-four workers by late August 2020, it rose by 16 percentage points into 2021 in conditions of the second lockdown (Felstead, 2021).
If WFH appeared initially to be a temporary exigency, the duration of the Covid-19 pandemic meant that home working resulted in more than a brief hiatus from the workplace. Currently, the advice in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland remains for workers who can to remain WFH, though in England a gradual return to the workplace has been encouraged. Nevertheless, the immediate and even longer term future appears to be that forms of hybrid working will become commonplace, even as more workers appear set to return for at least part of the time to the workplace. WFH has had momentous consequences for the way that work has been organised and for workers’ experiences. The dramatic change in loci and the associated technological means has raised inter alia questions of management control and communication autonomy, discretion, target fulfilment, quality of work and productivity. For workers, issues relating to the suitability of workstations in the home, to physical and mental health and well-being, to isolation and colleague collaboration, to work-life balance and gender have become prominent. There have been consequences too for the employment relationship and more specifically for trade unions and the exercise of employee voice.
This extended seminar is being organised by British Universities Industrial Relations Association (BUIRA) Scotland and by the Department of Work, Employment and Organisation at the University of Strathclyde as part of its seminar programme. Both Professor Phil Taylor (University of Strathclyde) and Professor Abigail Marks (University of Newcastle) will be presenting findings and discussion the implications, both theoretically and in terms of policy, from their respective major research projects on the experiences of working from home which commenced in 2020 and are ongoing. In addition, Dave Moxham from the Scottish Trades Union Congress will contribute a perspective based on the experiences of trade unions and trade unionists in Scotland. The seminar will also feature contributions by PhD students in the Department of Work, Employment and Organisation, whose researches have been impacted by Covid-19 and who have had to re-orient their fieldwork to take account of these novel conditions.
Speakers and Timetable:
Chair’s Introduction: Dr. Stewart Johnstone (Department of Work, Employment and Organisation, University of Strathclyde)
Presentation: Professor Abigail Marks – (Newcastle University Business School)
https://www.ncl.ac.uk/business-school/staff/profile/abigailmarks.html#background
Trade Union Experiences: Dave Moxham, Deputy General Secretary, Scottish Trades Union Congress
Introduction: Dr. Kendra Briken Doing a PhD During Covid-19
Student Research Experiences from Department of Work, Organisation and Employment, University of Strathclyde.
Presentation and Summation: Professor Phil Taylor (Department of Work, Employment and Organisation, University of Strathclyde.
21st September 2021
https://routledge.pub/LivingWage
Description
As wealth inequality skyrockets and trade union power declines, the living wage movement has become ever more urgent for public policymakers, academics, and—most importantly—those workers whose wages hover close to the breadline. Most governments’ minimum wages are falling short, meaning millions of workers struggle to cover their living costs. By including the voices of those workers earning at, or near, the living wage alongside the opinions of leading experts in this field, this book is a pioneering contribution for public policymakers, as well as students and academics of work and employment relations, public policy, organisational studies, social economics and politics.
20% Discount Available - enter the code FLY21 at checkout*
Reviews
‘The 20th anniversary of the Living Wage campaign in the UK is a moment to look back and reflect on what’s been achieved. This insightful new book does just that, as well as putting the movement in its international context.’
Laura Gardiner, Director, Living Wage Foundation
‘This important new book contains new insights on living wage developments in the UK and around the world, and provides greater understanding of how the living wage is used as a policy to address low pay and inequality.’
Stuart Wright, Chair, Living Wage Foundation Advisory Council and Group Property & Facilities Director, Aviva PLC
‘A fascinating account of the evolution of approaches to the living wage from an international perspective. This work is truly informative as we continue to seek solutions to income inequality across the UK.’
Gill Dix, Head of Workplace Policy, Acas
‘Against a backdrop of increasing income inequality and declining trades union membership and the collective bargaining it makes possible, statutory national minimum wages – which establish a floor under wages, are set by the state, and are compulsory – and national living wages – which establish a basic but decent standard of living, are set by civil-society organisations, and are voluntary – have recently been introduced in several countries. This book provides important insights from a wide range of researchers and public policy experts into the history, operation, and impact of these wage initiatives not only in the UK but also globally. It is essential reading for academics, practitioners, policy makers, and others who want to improve the prospects of the low-paid.’
Professor Sir George Bain, Founding Chair of the UK Low Pay Commission
'Unions have always been at the forefront of the fight for a living wage. This insightful book charts the evolution of the living wage in the UK and around the globe. And it highlights the need for the living wage to sit alongside fundamental reform of our labour market – with stronger rights for working people and their unions'
Paul Nowak, Deputy General Secretary, TUC
21st September 2021
BUIRA Online Paper Development Session September 30th 12:15-13:00
(De)professionalisation and the role of 'law': evolving professional projects in HR and legal services.
Eleanor Kirk (University of Glasgow, School of Law) and Esme Terry (University of Leeds, ESRC Digit Research Centre)
In this seminar we explore the place of ‘law’ and the ‘legal’ in processes of professionalisation and de-professionalisation. We consider law and the legal as forms of technical expertise and as well as normative, ideological and legitimating resources. We will explore questions regarding the need for, and avenues of diffusion of law into society, to shed light on the varying fortunes of different occupational groups of expert and non-expert practitioners, and the evolution of law as an institution regulating work and employment. In this short work-in-progress presentation, we will outline the findings from two separate qualitative studies - drawing on data resulting from interviews with HR practitioners and lawyers respectively - and offer some preliminary synthesis of the findings from these distinct case studies.
Please register through Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/paper-development-session-tickets-170356212016
If you have any questions or would like to present in a future paper development session please contact Emma: E.S.Hughes@liverpool.ac.uk
13th September 2021
7th September 2021
7th September 2021
New Book: Tremors of Discontent: My Life in Print 1970-1988
By Mike Richardson
https://www.brh.org.uk/site/pamphleteer/tremors-of-discontent/
Mike Richardson is a visiting research fellow at the University of the West of England
Book Description
While there are many academic studies of workers’ resistance and consciousness during the 1970s and 1980s, few accounts relate the personal-political experiences of the activists involved. Tremors of Discontent, however, explores how Mike Richardson’s individual consciousness came to change during that period. It shows how gradually his participation in trade union and left politics broke through his boyhood reserve, intensified by the external political, economic and social circumstances. By following the growth and development of his convictions and beliefs, Mike’s autobiographical account contributes to a greater understanding of how militant social and political views came to be held by thousands of rank-and-file trade unionists in Britain in the 1970s and 80s.
Reviews
An extraordinarily powerful and candid testimony that captures the elusive dynamic between lived experience, trade union activism and political consciousness.
Professor Sian Moore (FHEA), Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences Director, Public Services International Research Unit (PSIRU) and Co-Director, Centre for Research on Employment and Work (CREW) Co-Editor Work in the Global Economy Greenwich Business School
Personally, intensely honest; politically, thoughtfully radical. This timely memoir is of historic importance. It is also an excellent read.
Hilary Wainwright, Editor Red Pepper and author of A New Politics from the Left (Polity, 2018)
31st August 2021
31st August 2021
There will be a free, on-line event, on 9th September, featuring Alicia Garza, co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Prior to founding #BLM, Alicia had two decades of experience organising in low-income neighbourhoods including in Oakland. Her book: ‘The Purpose of Power’ is a fantastic introduction to the theory and practice of community organising, and is a must for UK changemakers.
As one reviewer said, the pages are filled: ‘with equal measures of wisdom, comfort and irrefutable facts that intertwine to create a book that belongs in the hands of anyone that feels like a tiny cog in the colossal machine that is racial injustice and white supremacy’
Alicia herself has described the book as a 'love letter to black people'.
Even if you don’t agree with her, Alicia will raise questions and challenges that will make us all think deeper about how we effect the change we desperately need.
The session will start with an interview of Alicia, by Ian Manborde, equality officer at the actor and performers union Equity.
We will then widen out the discussion to include reflections from an impressive panel:
We will then move into breakout groups for discussion before returning for a Q&A with the panel.
There are already 300 people registered, but our target is an audience of 1,000 which would both do justice to the commitment of Alicia, but also create a very valuable opportunity to discuss where we are in the battle to eradicate race discrimination here in the UK.
31st August 2021
We are calling for participants for the annual Gender Issues in Business Schools (GIBS) Network Workshop. This is an opportunity for doctoral and early career researchers or anyone new to gender research to engage in advanced dialogue and debate on gender issues in management, broadly defined.
The workshop is inter-disciplinary and is open to all academic disciplines that can contribute to gender knowledge in the context of management, business, organisation, work and employment.
During the two-day event, participants will:
All abstracts will be reviewed by members of the GIBS organising committee. Please submit your abstract via https://www.conftool.net/gender-issues2021 by 20th of September 2021.
For inquiries related to the event, please contact the GIBS organising committee gibsnetwork@gmail.com.
Attendance is FREE: the event is organised by the GIBS committee with funding from SAMS (Society for the Advancement of Management Studies).
24th August 2021
The passing of Professor David Marsden is a big loss to the industrial relations community and more widely. Professor Marsden joined LSE as a Lecturer in 1980. He was a highly respected scholar with extensive knowledge of labour markets and comparative industrial relations. David died unexpectedly on Tuesday 10 August 2021. Deepest condolences to his family and friends from BUIRA.
Colleagues at LSE and beyond have been paying tribute and expressing condolences in memory of David:
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/condolences/2021/08/18/in-memory-of-david-marsden/
24th August 2021
The Foundation launches the critique by Professor Gregor Gall on Tuesday 17 August at 7pm. The discussant is Roz Foyer, STUC general secretary.
Register for the launch at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/critique-of-scottish-governments-fair-work-policy-tickets-162134208783
The paper can be accessed at https://reidfoundation.scot/2021/06/critique-of-scottish-governments-fair-work-policy-published/
3rd August 2021
The Association of Industrial Relations Academics of Australia and New Zealand (AIRAANZ) is pleased to announce that the AIRAANZ 2022 Conference will be hosted by the Sydney Employment Relations Research Group (SERRG) and the Discipline of Work and Organisational Studies (WOS) at the University of Sydney Business School from Wednesday 9 to Friday 11 February 2022.
The format of the conference is still yet to be determined due to the ongoing uncertainties associated with the COVID-19 pandemic and travel restrictions. We are hoping that at least some sessions will be held in-person at the University of Sydney Business School, with online participation available for all sessions.
The conference will involve a workshop for higher degree research students on Wednesday 9 February, with most other activities taking place on Thursday 10 and Friday 11 February.
The theme of the conference is: ‘Work Not As Usual'. This theme allows us to explore key issues for employment relations research including, but not limited to, the following:
We now invite submissions for the following:
Conference session proposals should include the following details:
Abstracts of papers to be presented in general conference sessions should be 250 words max and include the author/s name, affiliations and contact details, research question, methodological approach, theoretical focus and main conclusions.
Abstracts of papers to be presented at the higher degree research student workshop should be 250 words max and include the author name, affiliations and contact details, research question, methodological approach, theoretical focus and main conclusions. Higher degree research students whose abstracts are accepted will be asked to submit a short paper (2,000 words max) by 9 January 2022. This short paper will help discussants to prepare constructive feedback.
Please use the submission form: https://business.sydney.edu.au/events/2022/airaanz
Questions regarding the conference should be sent to: chris.f.wright@sydney.edu.au
Members of the conference organising committee: Marian Baird, Stephen Clibborn, Rae Cooper, Bradon Ellem, Frances Flanagan, Meraiah Foley, Dimitria Groutsis, Sunghoon Kim, Angela Knox, Susan McGrath-Champ, Alex Veen, Mark Westcott, Chris F Wright
21st July 2021
Employment, Trade Unionism, and Class: The Labour Market in Southern Europe since the Crisis
By
The economic crisis has brought about a watershed in institutional, political, and social relations, reshaping the labour market and the class structure in southern Europe. This book provides a critical comparative assessment of the dynamics of change in the employment field, focusing on Spain, Greece, and Cyprus.
The book assesses how the liberalization and deregulation processes and the promotion of market-enhancing reforms progressed in three different national settings, identifying the forces, agents, contexts, and mechanisms shaping the employment and industrial relations systems. The comparative perspective used deciphers the interplay of external and internal dynamics in the restructuring of the labour field in Southern Europe, examining austerity and its contestation in connection with prevailing societal ideologies and class shifts. The first part of the book sets the theoretical and historical context, the second is comprised of three empirical national case studies, and the third discusses comparatively the handling of the crisis, its impact, and its legacy from the standpoint of a decade later. The book presents differences in industrial relations systems, trade union forms, and class composition dynamics, accounting for the development of the crisis and the reshaping of the employment field after one decade of crisis.
It will be of value to researchers, academics, professionals, and students working on issues of employment and industrial relations, labour market and labour law, political economy and class structure, as well as those interested in the contemporary society and economy of southern Europe in general, and Spain, Greece, and Cyprus in particular.
Part I Southern Europe: the labour market and the crisis 1. The themes, the concepts and the field 2. Employment relations and crisis Part II The changing context of employment relations in Spain, Greece and Cyprus 3. Spain. Compression and upheaval 4. Greece. Suppression, contestation and levelling 5. Cyprus. Shock and resilience Part III Beneath and beyond the economic crisis: development, contention, and class struggle 6. Comparing and contrasting experiences and impact 7. Covid-19 and the new on-going crisis 8. The world of labour in Southern Europe from crisis to crisis
Gregoris Ioannou is a political sociologist and research fellow at the Law School of the University of Glasgow, UK.
"Spain, Greece and Cyprus were the three EU countries with the worst employment crisis in recent years. Gregoris Ioannou’s book is the first to examine them together and in detail, with a clear analytical approach that digs into the causes and consequences of the crisis, challenging the mainstream institutional explanations and proposing alternative prospects for Southern Europe’s labour markets." Prof. Guglielmo Meardi, Sociology of Economic Labour Processes, Scuola Normale Superiore Florence, Editor of the European Industrial Relations Journal
"This book offers an indispensable review of recent changes in the fields of employment, trade union activity, political representation, social security, gender, and composition of the working class in Southern Europe. The study covers the impact of neoliberalism, the Global Financial Crisis, and COVID-19. Drawing upon the best literatures in the social sciences, law, and economic policy, the book examines how economic practices and social relations were (re-)regulated under neoliberalism and its crises. A valuable resource for our understanding of the dynamics of labour in contemporary Europe." Prof. Alfredo Saad Filho, Political Economy & International Development, King’s College London.
"Employment, Trade Unionism and Class: The Labour Market in Southern Europe since the Crisis is a crucial contribution to the literature on how the implementation of economic reforms contribute to labour flexibility and economic precariousness. Gregoris Ioannou has strong command of the political economy of Southern Europe in exploring the transformation of trade unionism and its impact on class composition in Spain, Greece, and Cyprus in the aftermath of the Great Financial Crisis. This book is a crucial contribution to the labour and political economy in Europe." Prof. Immanuel Ness, Political Science, City University of New York.
"Gregoris Ioannou provides a detailed and insightful assessment of the changes in industrial relations systems in Southern Europe since the emergence of the 2007-2008 economic crisis. In charting effectively, the economic, social, and political dynamics in which industrial relations systems and labour regulation are embedded in, the analysis offers valuable lessons about the impact of these developments in the European periphery and beyond." Aristea Koukiadaki, Senior Lecturer in Labour Law, University of Manchester
"This book is an important contribution to our understanding of how crises affect work and employment. Focusing on the long-lasting effects of the Great Financial Crisis and subsequent recession, the book looks in detail at the consequences for labour markets in Spain, Greece and Cyprus highlighting the role of agency in the process of institutional and labour market restructuring. By emphasising the choices open to actors, and by stressing that there are always choices even when alternative paths are sometimes less evident, the analysis presents a compelling explanation of how and why particular paths are chosen in moments of response to crisis. Reminding policy makers about the choices open to them and showing the problematic outcomes of paths previously travelled is a crucially important intellectual and practical agenda that this book centres." Prof. Melanie Simms, Work and Employment, University of Glasgow
21st July 2021
The Diversity Interest Group at the University of Greenwich would like to invite the submission of abstracts for the autumn conference to be held on Wednesday 22ndSeptember 2021.
The conference theme, ‘Contemporary Issues in Equality and Diversity” is designed to capture research being undertaken from any discipline that captures contemporary issues in Equality and Diversity from a range of perspectives. Papers can be empirical, conceptual or action-based research.
Presenters can choose from a traditional paper presentation with questions that should last 15 minutes followed by 5 minutes of questions or a lightning presentation that should last 10 minutes followed by ten minutes of questions. PhD students are invited to create posters of their research to be accompanied by a five-minute presentation to be delivered in small breakout rooms.
Abstracts should be no more than 250 words long and should be emailed to DIG Deputy Dr Louise Hewitt
(Louise.hewitt@greenwich.ac.uk). Deadline extended to 30th July 2021
The conference will run in Teams and the programme and full details will be circulated nearer the time.
13th July 2021
5–10 September 2021
Akademie Sankelmark, Flensburg (Germany)
http://www.phd-network.eu/irws/programme/
PROGRAMME
PARALLEL MORNING SESSION 1 (6 - 8 September 2021)
PARALLEL AFTERNOON SESSION 2 (6 - 8 September 2021)
PARALLEL SESSION 3 (9 September 2021)
WORKSHOP COMMITTEE:
FEES & CREDIT POINTS
499 Euro (with accommodation and meals)
It is possible to get a certificate on 5 credit points (according to the European Credit Transfer System).
WORKSHOP VENUE
The workshop will take place at the Akademie Sankelmark, Akademieweg 6 in Oeversee (near Flensburg), Germany. The health, safety, and well-being of our lecturers, the staff at the Akademie and the participants are our top priorities. All necessary measures are taken to ensure everyone stays healthy. Further, we will continue to monitor the COVID-19 situation and switch to an online workshop when necessary.
CONTACT & REGISTRATION
For any questions don't hesitate to contact the workshop committee (irwsnetwork@gmail.com).
Please register for the workshop here or on the workshop website.
ORGANIZERS
SUPPORTERS
13th July 2021
13th July 2021
6th July 2021
July 13th to 15th 2021
Registration is now open for the BUIRA 2021 Annual Conference. Registration is free for BUIRA members and can be done through Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/buira-conference-2021-tickets-158582643957
If you are not already a member, please join BUIRA here: http://buira.org/membership
We have created a new conference website to host the programme. Zoom links will be added for each of the sessions nearer the time. To see the preliminary programme, please visit: https://sites.google.com/view/buira2021/ If you want to request changes to the programme, please do so by 5pm on Friday 9th July. We will endeavour to accommodate changes where possible.
6th July 2021
The call for papers is now open and closes on 16 July 2021
The Applied Research Conference (ARC) is an annual meeting place for academic researchers and practitioners working in people management, employment policy and related fields. It holds a unique place in bringing together these two communities to hear about cutting edge research in HR and discuss how it can be applied in practice.
ARC is an interdisciplinary conference that covers a wide range of aspects of people management, employment, learning and development and organisational development. In all research papers presented, we set out to discuss the practical application of insights to organisational life and labour markets.
The CIPD Applied Research Conference (ARC) will be at the Alliance Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, on 26 – 27 January 2022. For the first time ever we hope to run a hybrid event, allowing the flexibility to attend in person or virtually. More information is available here.
29th June 2021
Acas’ findings from its fact-finding exercise on ‘fire and rehire’ practices have now been made available on it’s website at https://www.acas.org.uk/fire-and-rehire-report.
29th June 2021
Dear all,
Registration is now open for the BUIRA 2021 Annual Conference. Registration is free for BUIRA members and can be done through Eventbrite.
If you are not already a member, please join BUIRA here.
We have created a new conference website to host the programme. Zoom links will be added for each of the sessions nearer the time. To see the preliminary programme, please visit: https://sites.google.com/view/buira2021/ If you want to request changes to the programme, please do so by 5pm on Friday 9th July. We will endeavour to accommodate changes where possible.
We look forward to seeing you at the conference!
With best wishes,
The BUIRA Executive Committee
22nd June 2021
The University of Bristol invites applications for a fully-funded PhD scholarship on Decent Work and Rooted Cosmopolitans supervised by Professor Peter Turnbull and Dr Huw Thomas.
Please forward this to your current students and colleagues.
The scholarship commences in October 2021.
This studentship offers an opportunity to be part of a new major project on how rooted cosmopolitans orchestrate collective action within different epistemic communities in order to promote decent work in a global economy marred by not only the COVID pandemic but a crumbling architecture of global governance and rising nationalism.
Full details can be found here: https://www.bristol.ac.uk/management/study/postgraduate-research/postgraduate-research/
Informal enquiries: huw.thomas@bristol.ac.uk
22nd June 2021
Applications are invited for a one-year Research Fellow post at Cranfield School of Management to work on an ESRC sponsored project, examining the impact of using the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (flexible furlough) on employer perceptions of part-time working and the implications for economic recovery and future working.
Full details of the post are available at:
https://jobs.cranfield.ac.uk/vacancy/research-fellow-448126.html
Informal enquiries are welcome and should be directed to Project Director, Professor Clare Kelliher
clare.kelliher@cranfield.ac.uk
The closing date for applications is 4th July 2021
22nd June 2021
Newcastle University Business School invites applications for a three-year PhD studentship in the Future of Work. The studentship commences in September 2021.
This studentship offers an opportunity to be part of a new major research programme in the Future of Work led by Professor Stephen Procter, the Alcan Chair of Management.
Full details of the studentship are available at: https://www.ncl.ac.uk/postgraduate/funding/sources/allstudents/alcan21.html.
Informal enquiries are welcome, and can be directed to Professor Procter at: stephen.procter@newcastle.ac.uk.
The closing date for applications is July 7 2021
15th June 2021
22 June 2021, 9.00 AM - 5.00 PM
The Lady Hale Moot Court, 8-10 Berkeley Square
The Centre for Law at Work are hosting a workshop on Tuesday 22nd June 2021 entitled 'Labour, strategy, and the constitutional protection of work: On the potential effectiveness of legal mobilisation'.
The central concern of this workshop is to explore the ways that contemporary labour movements have engaged strategically with law as a means to realise legal and political demands. This workshop aims to bring together the insights about legal mobilisation as a tool of struggle in socio-legal scholarship with contemporary labour’s specific experience of both litigation and legislative practices. This interdisciplinary and collaborative workshop seeks to comprehend the social, political, economic, and legal factors that shape the effectiveness of legal mobilisation and the extent to which it is possible to extract general lessons about the ways labour movements engage strategically with law. While this analysis will involve focusing on the prospects for re-interpreting specific areas of labour law, the workshop is equally concerned with the context of labour’s engagement with law in constitutionalism. This opens up the investigative remit to include the role legal mobilisation plays in giving a voice to worker’s political demands and the potential for these strategic actions to have a longer-term impact on the constitutional protection of labour.
The official agenda will be available for viewing very soon.
To register for this event please visit https://www.eventbrite.com/e/centre-for-law-at-work-workshop-tickets-154690640871 (in person availibility will be limited due to COVID restrictions).
15th June 2021
Has a standard contract of employment ever existed? An historical overview from the UK
17.00-18.45 Thursday 17 June 2021 (through Zoom)
The aim of this seminar is to establish the antecedents of casual employment in the history of IR in the light of the Uber case. Many people still see the full-time open-ended employment contract as 'standard', which of course it often is, but the accompanying assumption - that casual employment is somehow anomalous - is clearly misplaced. In this seminar we explore the development of both ‘standard’ and casual employment in a longer-term time frame, going back to the 19th century.
For further details or to reserve a place, please e-mail Michael Gold (m.gold@rhul.ac.uk) or Linda Clarke (clarkel@wmin.ac.uk). We’ll send you the Zoom link a few days before the seminar.
Programme:
17.00-17.15: Welcome and introduction: Michael Gold and Linda Clarke (Chairs)
17.15 – 17.45: Simon Deakin
The genealogy of the contract of employment
Legal concepts are linguistic artefacts which have a function (classification for the purposes of legislation and adjudication) and a history (they are shaped by path dependent forces). The English legal term ‘employment’ has a history that helps us to understand the uses it is being put to today. A comparative overview, taking into account mainland European ‘work’ relationships (contrat de travail, Arbeitsverhältnis) and the US ‘ABC’ test of employment status, are also helpful for putting into perspective recent developments, including the Supreme Court judgment in Uber (Feb. 2021).
17.45 – 18.15: Noel Whiteside
Back to the Future? Forms of employment in historical perspective
This presentation re-examines assumptions about ‘standard’ employment and its prevalence. Reappraising forms of employment found in the UK since the late nineteenth century, it demonstrates how casual working practices and flexible hours characterised substantial sections of the UK economy prior to the second world. From this perspective, the 1950s and 1960s appear exceptional. The presentation concludes, with recent legal judgements, that work contracts do not necessarily reflect the realities of precarious employment; that security of job tenure does not equate to security of earnings; that official categories of labour market analysis are, at best, misleading - and that multiple problems face those who would reform the situation. For finally, what does ‘employment’ mean?
18.15 – 18.45: Discussion and Close
*****
Our speakers:
Simon Deakin: Professor of Law at Cambridge University and Director of the Centre for Business Research (www.cbr.cam.ac.uk). He is co-author of Deakin and Morris on Labour Law which will appear in a new edition (the 7th) in the summer of 2021 (https://bloomsburyprofessional.com/uk/deakin-and-morris-labour-law-9781509943548/).
Recent publications include: ‘Decoding employment status’ (2020) King’s Law Journal 31:2, 180-193, https://doi.org/10.1080/09615768.2020.1789432
Noel Whiteside: Professor at the University of Warwick Institute for Employment Research, an emerita Professor in sociology (Warwick) and a visiting Professor at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment (University of Oxford). Her research focuses on labour markets and labour market policies in historical and comparative perspective, previously assisted by a variety of European and UK research awards. Recent publications include: ‘Casual employment and its consequences: an historical appraisal of recent labour market trends’ Historical Studies in Industrial Relations, 40, 2019: 1-26.
15th June 2021
15th June 2021
The Jimmy Reid Foundation's new paper critiquing the Scottish Government's 'Fair Work' is now available at
https://reidfoundation.scot/2021/06/critique-of-scottish-governments-fair-work-policy-published/
A summary of the paper is:
‘Fair Work’ has been the flagship programme of the SNP Scottish Government on employment matters since 2016. The accompanying ‘Fair Work Framework’ sets out to make Scotland a ‘fair work’ nation by 2025 so the new Scottish Parliament elected on 6 May 2021 will take responsibility for that as it runs until 2026. And, it is the SNP minority government in particular that will be measured against this goal. The findings of this paper are that the measures taken to make progress towards attaining this goal are weak and limited because there is no compulsion placed upon employers to implement them; that the rhetoric of SNP Scottish Government of 2016-2021 is not matched by its actions; and that it is improbable that the goal will be reached without significant changes in approach, specifically requiring the use of statutory compulsion, especially in regard of public procurement. Within the conclusion, a number of recommendations are made to address and ameliorate these issues.
8th June 2021
The application deadline for the Digit Summer School has been extended until 15 June 2021
The Digit Summer School on Global Value Chains & Digit Transformations is open to Early Career Researchers (ECRs), who we define as individuals that are currently undertaking a PhD or working in a postdoctoral researcher capacity, and are within 5 years of submitting their PhD.
The theme for Digit’s 2021 Summer School reflects the way that digital transformations are changing the organisation, quality and location of work along Global Value chains.
The school will have four parallel tracks:
· Digital transformation in Global Value Chains and future skill needs
· The Changing Nature and Location of Work along Global Value Chains
· Digital Transformation for organisations and the wider society
· Emerging entrepreneurship through evolving Digital infrastructures for GVCs
Applicants should submit a 1000 word abstract by 15 June 2021. All details can be found on the Digit Summer School webpage.
· Deadline for 1000 word abstract submission: extended to 15/06/2021
· Notification of abstract acceptance and invitation to submit full paper: 30/06/2021
· Deadline for full paper submission: 31/08/2021
This year’s School will be held online on 14th, 15th & 16th September 2021.
Please do share with anyone you think would be interested and eligible.
Digital Futures at Work Research Centre
University of Sussex Business School
Jubilee 301
University of Sussex
Brighton
BN1 9SL
United Kingdom
Website: https://digit-research.org/
Twitter: @digitcentre
8th June 2021
Dear BUIRA members,
Please register for the FREE online BUIRA annual conference 2021 (13 - 15 July 2021):
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/buira-conference-2021-tickets-158582643957
BUIRA 2021 Online Conference: The past, present and future of industrial relations and the politics of work
About this event
BUIRA turning 70 last year presents a good opportunity to reflect on the past, present and future of industrial relations. This was the topic of the postponed 2020 conference, and, if anything, is more salient than ever. Despite facing recent challenges, the field of industrial relations continues to be a vital topic of academic and practitioner enquiry. Issues that have long been central within the study of industrial relations, such as pay, collective bargaining, rights at work, employee representation, national and transnational forms of regulation, health and safety, job (in)security, precarity, equality and diversity, and workplace conflict are highly prominent within many current political and academic debates. Understanding the politics of work, grounded in a critical social science tradition, is crucial for academics and policy makers alike.
Where are we now? How have we got here, and what should the future of the field look like? Reflecting on historical developments in industrial relations is crucial in order to ground and contextualise current developments in the world of work. History matters in helping us to understand the changing nature of industrial relations, and yet is often overlooked in modern accounts of work relations. It is also important to reflect on pressing current issues. Most notably, what has/will continue to be the implications of Coronavirus for employment relations and the future of work? This was the subject of the BUIRA Special Seminar on November 4th 2020, and an ongoing research issue for BUIRA members. What about the continuing impact of austerity and the 2008 financial crisis in a more financialised world, increasing inequality, as well as economic and social challenges caused by the Covid pandemic and Brexit? What have been the consequences for public sector industrial relations? What is the impact of patterns of precarious work and non-standard employment relationships on the changing nature of work and employment, skills and the quality of work? Across all of these questions, issues of social class, equality and diversity remain more relevant than ever before. Looking to the future, one key question concerns the extent to which unions can play an active role with social movements to tackle climate breakdown. How is power deployed and distributed at work? How much voice and influence do employees have? Whither economic and industrial democracy at work?
Plenary Speakers:
Judy Wajcman http://www.lse.ac.uk/sociology/people/judy-wajcman
Anne McBride https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/a.mcbride.html
Jenny K Rodriguez https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/jenny.rodriguez.html
Sian Moore https://www.gre.ac.uk/people/rep/faculty-of-business/sian-moore
The conference will also feature an 'Early Career Researcher Plenary Panel' (with Jean Jenkins as Discussant) and a 'Work in the Real World' Special Session with the Manchester Trades Union Council.
We look forward to welcoming you to our FREE online conference. All we ask is that you ensure your BUIRA membership is up-to-date before registering (https://buira.org/membership/join). If you have any questions, please get in touch: admin@buira.org.
The full conference programme will be published shortly.
8th June 2021
The BUIRA Executive Committee will have 2 vacancies as from July 2021. We will be announcing the results of these elections at a forthcoming online Annual General Meeting to be held in 7th July 2021.
As agreed at the AGM in Leeds 2016, the voting system for vacancies on the Executive Committee will be conducted differently.
We now invite all members to forward their interest in becoming a member of the BUIRA Exec Committee to the BUIRA Stewards. Please complete your nomination form here: https://bham.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_8unplDT687Cc9QG
All members are welcome to apply regardless of career stage (i.e. early career or otherwise). However, we would strongly encourage women and black and minority ethnic members to apply for these positions, as they remain to be under-represented in BUIRA. Following the motion passed at the 2019 AGM in Newcastle, to ensure the Executive Committee has an equal gender balance, only one of the vacant positions can be filled by an individual identifying as male.
Due to the lack of a physical conference this year, we are conducting the voting online through Qualtrics. The selection process is still via the membership, not the Stewardship or the Executive Committee. The results will be announced at the Online AGM.
On the application form, you must include a short biography of no more than 300 words and your reasons for applying for the vacant position.
Please submit your application by Friday 11th June 2021.
27th May 2021
At the 2020 BUIRA AGM, it was agreed to hold a special session to discuss the draft BUIRA Code of Practice. This document was prepared by Laura William and Jenny Rodriquez and discussed at previous BUIRA meetings in 2018, 2019 and 2020.
The draft is available for comment here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1poIpyJEfq1HMOXRDlzCBK00ZW_z55tTu6EkJ2HOLDOg/edit?usp=sharing
Please make all comments by Friday 11th June.
There will be a special session to gain more feedback and agree the document on Tuesday 15th June 2pm-3pm. Register for this event here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/buira-code-of-practice-discussion-event-tickets-157068878243
27th May 2021
Has a standard contract of employment ever existed? An historical overview from the UK
17.00-18.45 Thursday 17 June 2021 (through Zoom)
The aim of this seminar is to establish the antecedents of casual employment in the history of IR in the light of the Uber case. Many people still see the full-time open-ended employment contract as 'standard', which of course it often is, but the accompanying assumption - that casual employment is somehow anomalous - is clearly misplaced. In this seminar we explore the development of both ‘standard’ and casual employment in a longer-term time frame, going back to the 19th century.
For further details or to reserve a place, please e-mail Michael Gold (m.gold@rhul.ac.uk) or Linda Clarke (clarkel@wmin.ac.uk). We’ll send you the Zoom link a few days before the seminar.
Programme:
17.00-17.15: Welcome and introduction: Michael Gold and Linda Clarke (Chairs)
17.15 – 17.45: Simon Deakin
The genealogy of the contract of employment
Legal concepts are linguistic artefacts which have a function (classification for the purposes of legislation and adjudication) and a history (they are shaped by path dependent forces). The English legal term ‘employment’ has a history that helps us to understand the uses it is being put to today. A comparative overview, taking into account mainland European ‘work’ relationships (contrat de travail, Arbeitsverhältnis) and the US ‘ABC’ test of employment status, are also helpful for putting into perspective recent developments, including the Supreme Court judgment in Uber (Feb. 2021).
17.45 – 18.15: Noel Whiteside
Back to the Future? Forms of employment in historical perspective
This presentation re-examines assumptions about ‘standard’ employment and its prevalence. Reappraising forms of employment found in the UK since the late nineteenth century, it demonstrates how casual working practices and flexible hours characterised substantial sections of the UK economy prior to the second world. From this perspective, the 1950s and 1960s appear exceptional. The presentation concludes, with recent legal judgements, that work contracts do not necessarily reflect the realities of precarious employment; that security of job tenure does not equate to security of earnings; that official categories of labour market analysis are, at best, misleading - and that multiple problems face those who would reform the situation. For finally, what does ‘employment’ mean?
18.15 – 18.45: Discussion and Close
*****
Our speakers:
Simon Deakin: Professor of Law at Cambridge University and Director of the Centre for Business Research (www.cbr.cam.ac.uk). He is co-author of Deakin and Morris on Labour Law which will appear in a new edition (the 7th) in the summer of 2021 (https://bloomsburyprofessional.com/uk/deakin-and-morris-labour-law-9781509943548/).
Recent publications include: ‘Decoding employment status’ (2020) King’s Law Journal 31:2, 180-193, https://doi.org/10.1080/09615768.2020.1789432
Noel Whiteside: Professor at the University of Warwick Institute for Employment Research, an emerita Professor in sociology (Warwick) and a visiting Professor at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment (University of Oxford). Her research focuses on labour markets and labour market policies in historical and comparative perspective, previously assisted by a variety of European and UK research awards. Recent publications include: ‘Casual employment and its consequences: an historical appraisal of recent labour market trends’ Historical Studies in Industrial Relations, 40, 2019: 1-26.
25th May 2021
Webinar Book Launch:
Work and Labor Relations in the Construction Industry: An International Perspective (Routledge, February 2021)
Wednesday 16th June 2021
TIME: 11:30 – 14:00 GMT
Register: for free by 14th June 2pm, here at Eventbrite (A Zoom link will be sent to you).
The need for a skilled, motivated and effective workforce is fundamental to the creation of the built environment across the world. Known in so many places for a tendency to informal and casual working practices, for the sometimes-abusive use of migrant labor, for gendered male employment and for a neglect of the essentials of health and safety, the industry and its workforce face multiple challenges. This new book, edited by Dale Belman, Janet Druker and Geoffrey White, considers the different contexts, processes and outcomes in the construction industry in ten countries and draws out the similarities and differences in practice. Our webinar brings together authors of three of the ten chapters in the new book. These cover Australia, Russia and Sweden/Denmark. The three presentations provide contrasting pictures of employment relations in the three countries.
Our Presentations:
Alex Veen and Susan McGrath-Champ: ‘Evolving Employment Relations in the Australian Construction Industry.’
Olga Cretu, Claudio Morrison and Ekaterina Serezhkina: ‘The Russian Construction Sector: Informality, Labor Mobility and Socialist Legacies’.
Christian Lyhne Ibsen and Jens Arnholtz: ‘Sustaining ‘high road’ employment relations in the Swedish and Danish construction industries’.
Introducing the speakers:
Dr. Alex Veen is an employment relations scholar at the University of Sydney in Australia in the discipline of Work and Organizational Studies.
Professor Susan McGrath-Champ was until recently Professor in the Work and Organizational Studies Discipline at the University of Sydney Business School, Australia.
Dr. Olga Cretu is a Lecturer in the Department of Management and Human Resources at Coventry University UK since May 2020.
Dr. Claudio Morrison is Senior Research Fellow at Middlesex University Business School (London UK).
Dr. Ekaterina Serezhkina is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology of the National Research University - Higher School of Economics (HSE) of Moscow (RF) -Russia.
Asst. Professor Christian Lyhne Ibsen is Assistant Professor at the School of Human Resources and Labor Relations at Michigan State University and Associate Professor at FAOS at the University of Copenhagen.
Asst. Professor Jens Arnholtz is an Associate Professor at the Employment Relations Research Center (FAOS), University of Copenhagen.
Other authors and chapters in the book are as follows: -
Hernán Ruggirello and Janet Druker (Argentina), Marcella Piccoli and Carlos Diehl (Brazil), Gerhard Syben and Christian Beck (Germany), Divine Kwaku Ahadzie, Yaw Debrah and George Ofori (Ghana), Samar Kleib, Fida Afiouni and Issam Srour (Lebanon), Janet Druker and Geoffrey White (UK), Dale Belman and Russell Ormiston (USA).
25th May 2021
19 May 2021
Appreciation to Emeritus Professor Ed Heery for sharing his many insights from over 40 years as an Industrial Relationist, and thank you to all who joined a very enjoyable BUIRA Special Webinar. For those that could not join us, here is a link to the recording:
25th May 2021
Keith Sisson (Emeritus Professor of Industrial Relations, Industrial Relations Research Unit, University of Warwick) has written a new paper calling for a ‘new social contract’:
Building Back Better: the why and wherefore of the ‘new social contract’ agenda
25th May 2021
BUIRA members may also be interested in Prof. Sisson’s Employment Relations Matters text on the IRRU website.
He has concluded the updated chapter on public policy with a section on the 'new social contract' agenda.
25th May 2021
Due to local industrial action over job losses in Health Sciences at the University of Liverpool, the first BUIRA paper development session will now be held on: June 22nd 12:00-12:45pm
Presenter: Dr Alex Wood (University of Birmingham): “Platform Precarity: surviving algorithmic insecurity in the gig economy “
Co-author: Vili Lehdonvirta
Digitalization and the use of algorithms have raised concerns regarding the future of work; the gig economy being identified by some as particularly concerning. Yet academic research is inconsistent as to whether this sector constitutes precarious work. We attempt to reconcile contrasting existing accounts by developing a new model for gig economy precarity. In doing so we draw on 81 interviews in addition to participant observations to highlight the role of platform reputation in shaping experiences of traditional socio-economic insecurity. We also demonstrate that gig economy platforms produce a novel form of insecurity, which we term, ‘algorithmic insecurity’. This relates to the vulnerability and fear that workers experience as a result of working in an unstable and opaque environment in which platforms use customer-generated ratings to score workers, and algorithms to amplify the consequences of those scores. We also detail how workers respond to this capricious environment through unpaid labor, digital communities, and individual resistance. The aim of this qualitative research is to generate a model that can be tested quantitatively, as a first step towards this aim we draw on European survey data to provide tentative support for the existence of algorithmic insecurity beyond our interview participants.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3795375
|
papers.ssrn.com Digitalization and the use of algorithms have raised concerns regarding the future of work; the gig economy being identified by some as particularly concerning. |
Zoom details:
https://liverpool-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/91407813891?pwd=TUhFUVk0QXRmd3FmL0pzOXlYUWpTUT09
Meeting ID: 914 0781 3891
Passcode: BUIRA2021!
If you would like to present in the future, or have any questions at all about the sessions please contact Emma Hughes: E.S.Hughes@liverpool.ac.uk
18th May 2021
Wednesday 2 June – Friday 4 June
Participants include Diamond Ashiagbor, Tonia Novitz, Brishen Rogers, Noel Whiteside, Manoj Dias-Abey and members of the WorkOD team (Ruth Dukes, Gregoris Ioannou and Eleanor Kirk).
Papers will be given on the following topics: the Legal Constitution of Labour Markets, the Legal Constitution of Working Relations, Gig Work and the Law.
Visit Work on Demand Events for further details including a timetable, titles and abstracts: https://workondemand.co.uk/events/
Please register via: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/work-on-demand-seminar-series-tickets-153951496069
18th May 2021
We are delighted that this year’s Adam Smith Lecture in Jurisprudence will be given at 3pm on Friday 21 May by Kathleen Thelen, Ford Professor of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The topic of the lecture is Employer Organization in the United States: Historical Legacies and the Long Shadow of the American Courts.
All welcome!
You can register via eventbrite here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/adam-smith-lecture-in-jurisprudence-professor-kathleen-thelen-tickets-153983634195?aff=ebdsoporgprofile
Further information can be found here: https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/law/newsandevents/headline_454331_en.html
11th May 2021
New Book: Special Offer!
International & Comparative Employment Relations: Global Crises & Institutional Responses, new edition, Greg J Bamber, Fang Lee Cooke, Virginia Doellgast & Chris F Wright, editors
The standard reference for a worldwide readership of students, scholars & practitioners in international agencies, governments, employers & unions, this book offers a new & systematic overview. Experts examine the practice and context of employment relations in 13 countries: economic, historical, legal, social & political. The authors consider roles of various players; processes of employment relations including: collective bargaining, arbitration & employee involvement; as well as multinational enterprises; global supply chains; implications of digitalisation & new technologies; climate change & the COVID-19 pandemic.
Authors & contents: Guy Ryder, Foreword; The editors, Introduction: Internationally Comparative Approaches to Employment Relations, & Conclusions: Globalisation, Crises & Institutional Responses; Stewart Johnstone & Tony Dobbins, UK; Harry C. Katz & Alexander J.S. Colvin, USA; Scott Walsworth, Sean O’Brady & Daphne G. Taras, Canada; Chris F. Wright & Sarah Kaine, Australia; Lisa Dorigatti & Roberto Pedersini, Italy; Élodie Béthoux & Patrice Laroche, France; Berndt K. Keller & Anja Kirsch, Germany; Søren Kaj Andersen, Nana Wesley Hansen, Jørgen Steen Madsen & Jesper Due, Denmark; Katsuyuki Kubo & Kazuya Ogura. Japan; Byoung-Hoon Lee, South Korea; Fang Lee Cooke, China; Ernesto Noronha & Premilla D’Cruz, India; Johann Maree, Gilton Klerck & Asanda-Jonas Benya, South Africa.
Special 25% discount if ordering within 10 days, then only £35.24. Use promo. code BAMBER25
Other currencies' prices reflect exchange rates. Please suggest to the library. Review copies and e-copies available. 2021. ISBN: 9781526499653
The 7th edition is all updated with new examples and discussion questions to engage students and encourage critical thinking. Website includes slides for use in teaching and web links to enhance learning. Proceeds from the book contribute to charities that foster health-related research and hunger-relief.
Some of the book’s contributors will participate in the webinar below: You’re invited too!
Wednesday, May 19, 2021
10 - 11:30 am Eastern Time (New York Time)
New International and Comparative Labor and Employment Challenges: A Four Country Discussion
Sponsored by LERA International Interest Section
This webinar will include insights from Canada, Germany, South Africa and the USA. Speakers will discuss employment relations issues in global supply chains, climate change and restructuring of sectoral employment, digitalisation, and national responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. How are such issues posing new and potentially transformative challenges for employment relations systems and stakeholders?
Co-Chairs:
Panelists:
Discussant: Thomas A. Kochan, George M. Bunker Professor, Institute for Work and Employment Research, MIT Sloan School of Management, USA
There is no charge for this webinar, but please register for it. The Zoom link for the webinar will be sent to those registered after they register and also on the day of the webinar. A recording will be available to everyone who registers, even if they were not able to attend then.
At the registration site, you will be asked to input your name, email, affiliation (university/organization), and optionally other information. You will then receive a confirmation email that will include a unique link and additional information to join the meeting.
11th May 2021
BUIRA History of Industrial Relations Study Group
Has a standard contract of employment ever existed? An historical overview from the UK
17.00-18.45 Thursday 17 June 2021 (through Zoom)
The aim of this seminar is to establish the antecedents of casual employment in the history of IR in the light of the Uber case. Many people still see the full-time open-ended employment contract as 'standard', which of course it often is, but the accompanying assumption - that casual employment is somehow anomalous - is clearly misplaced. In this seminar we explore the development of both ‘standard’ and casual employment in a longer-term time frame, going back to the 19th century.
For further details or to reserve a place, please e-mail Michael Gold (m.gold@rhul.ac.uk) or Linda Clarke (clarkel@wmin.ac.uk). We’ll send you the Zoom link a few days before the seminar.
Programme:
17.00-17.15: Welcome and introduction: Michael Gold and Linda Clarke (Chairs)
17.15 – 17.45: Simon Deakin
The genealogy of the contract of employment
Legal concepts are linguistic artefacts which have a function (classification for the purposes of legislation and adjudication) and a history (they are shaped by path dependent forces). The English legal term ‘employment’ has a history that helps us to understand the uses it is being put to today. A comparative overview, taking into account mainland European ‘work’ relationships (contrat de travail, Arbeitsverhältnis) and the US ‘ABC’ test of employment status, are also helpful for putting into perspective recent developments, including the Supreme Court judgment in Uber (Feb. 2021).
17.45 – 18.15: Noel Whiteside
Back to the Future? Forms of employment in historical perspective
This presentation re-examines assumptions about ‘standard’ employment and its prevalence. Reappraising forms of employment found in the UK since the late nineteenth century, it demonstrates how casual working practices and flexible hours characterised substantial sections of the UK economy prior to the second world. From this perspective, the 1950s and 1960s appear exceptional. The presentation concludes, with recent legal judgements, that work contracts do not necessarily reflect the realities of precarious employment; that security of job tenure does not equate to security of earnings; that official categories of labour market analysis are, at best, misleading - and that multiple problems face those who would reform the situation. For finally, what does ‘employment’ mean?
18.15 – 18.45: Discussion and Close
*****
Our speakers:
Simon Deakin: Professor of Law at Cambridge University and Director of the Centre for Business Research (www.cbr.cam.ac.uk). He is co-author of Deakin and Morris on Labour Law which will appear in a new edition (the 7th) in the summer of 2021 (https://bloomsburyprofessional.com/uk/deakin-and-morris-labour-law-9781509943548/).
Recent publications include: ‘Decoding employment status’ (2020) King’s Law Journal 31:2, 180-193, https://doi.org/10.1080/09615768.2020.1789432
Noel Whiteside: Professor at the University of Warwick Institute for Employment Research, an emerita Professor in sociology (Warwick) and a visiting Professor at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment (University of Oxford). Her research focuses on labour markets and labour market policies in historical and comparative perspective, previously assisted by a variety of European and UK research awards. Recent publications include: ‘Casual employment and its consequences: an historical appraisal of recent labour market trends’ Historical Studies in Industrial Relations, 40, 2019: 1-26.
11th May 2021
Wed, May 19, 2021 4:00-5.30 pm
Sign up here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/buira-special-webinar-reflections-40-years-as-an-industrial-relationist-tickets-145713152963
This Special BUIRA Webinar welcomes Professor Emeritus Ed Heery, who will discuss his reflections of 40 years as an 'Industrial Relationist'.
Ed Heery is Professor Emeritus of Employment Relations at Cardiff Business School
Ed proposes to cover three topics:
Professor Edmund Heery - Biography
Edmund Heery is Professor Emeritus at Cardiff Business School, where he worked for 25 years before retiring in December 2020. Ed began his career at North East London Polytechnic (now UEL) in 1980, working as a researcher on payment systems in the coalmining industry, led by Christine Edwards. Subsequently, we worked at the LSE, City University, Imperial College, and Kingston University before joining Cardiff in 1995. Over a long career Ed Heery has researched a variety of issues within UK industrial relations and published widely. He is the author of three monographs, Management Control and Union Power: A Study of Labour Relations in Coalmining (with Christine Edwards), Working for the Union: British Trade Union Officers (with John Kelly), and Framing Work: Unitary, Pluralist and Critical Perspectives in the 21st Century. A fourth monograph, The Real Living Wage: Civil Regulation and the Employment Relationship (with Deborah Hann and David Nash) will be published shortly by Oxford University Press. Ed continues to be an active researcher, despite retirement, and this latest book will present the findings of an extended case study of the UK’s Living Wage campaign.
11th May 2021
Wednesday 12th May 2021
TIME: 14:00 – 16:30
Register: for free by 12th May 1:30pm, here at Eventbrite (a Zoom link will be sent to you).
Last autumn, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, announced a pay freeze for the public sector in 2021/22, with an exemption for NHS staff. The Government has proposed a 1% rise for NHS staff. Meanwhile the Scottish Government has offered pay rises of 4% to NHS staff in Scotland. All this follows a decade of pay controls on the public sector: a pay freeze from 2010, then a 1% limit from 2013/14 to 2017/18. From 2018 to 2020 this policy was relaxed.
The stated rationale for the Chancellor’s reimposition of severe pay restraint was the impact of the pandemic on official figures for earnings growth, which went negative in the private sector last summer as hours worked fell and a large number of workers were placed on furlough, in many cases on 80% of pay. But since then earnings growth has recovered.
Our panel of experts will discuss what is happening to pay across the public sector. It will also focus on Government and employer policies and trade union responses. It will also look at different methods of pay determination across the public sector including the Pay Review Bodies. Other issues include comparisons of public and private sector pay, and a focus on the gender pay gap, the ethnicity pay gap, and the future of pay progression. The impact of the pandemic on the labour market will also be considered, especially in the context of recruitment and retention across the public sector.
Our speakers:
Ken Mulkearn, Director, Incomes Data Research - ‘Freezes for some but not all: the outlook for pay in the public and private sectors in 2021’.
Nicola Allison, Remuneration Adviser, Office for Manpower Economics – ‘Recruitment, retention and the public sector pay pause’.
David Powell, Head of Salaries, National Education Union – ‘Teacher Pay - the impact of Government policy in the 2010s and prospects for the 2020s’.
Garry Graham, Deputy General Secretary, Prospect (union) – ‘After a decade of pay austerity in the public sector and the government’s announcement of a pay “pause”- what is the UK governments “strategy” on pay and reward and the challenge for unions?’
Introduction to our Speakers:
Ken Mulkearn: is the Director of Incomes Data Research , Ken Mulkearn is the Director of Research at Incomes Data Research. Together with IDR colleagues, he has led a range of research projects for clients such as the Low Pay Commission, the Office for Manpower Economics and employers in both the private and
public services. Ken writes and speaks about pay to a wide range of audiences, including academics and students as well as practitioners.
Nicola Allison: is the Remuneration Adviser for the Office for Manpower Economics. Nicola leads on research and economic issues for the public sector pay review bodies, which set pay increases for the NHS, school teachers, the police, prison officers, the armed forces, senior civil servants and judges.
David Powell: is Lead Officer for Pay Policy and Negotiations at the National Education Union (NEU). David has lead responsibility for pay policy. He also has responsibility for national and other collective negotiations on behalf of the NEU and its members. This includes work relating to the School Teachers’ Review Body in
England. Originally from Stockton-on-Tees, David is a graduate of the University of Oxford where he read Philosophy, Politics and Economics. David worked in the Civil Service after graduating, before joining the National Union of Teachers in 1993.
Garry Graham: is the Deputy General Secretary of Prospect (the union) and has responsibility for representing over 31,000 professionals, managers and specialists working in the civil service and wider public sector. He has previously worked for the CPSA (a predecessor of PCS) and the FDA. He leads discussions on behalf of Prospect with the Cabinet Office on pay, pensions, redundancy compensation and a range of HR issues. Garry has wide experience of negotiating pay and pay and reward systems in the public and private sector.
This is a free online webinar, open to the public and all are invited, register via Eventbrite.
11th May 2021
6th May 2021
BUIRA is launching new paper development sessions for any member post-PhD to Professor who want a digital platform to present a paper or paper idea at any stage of development.
How does it work?
1) Contact Emma Hughes – E.S.Hughes@liverpool.ac.uk to arrange a suitable time/date to present your paper or paper idea.
2) The platform link will be set up for you and advertised through BUIRA communications and social media.
3) Emma will chair the session which will run for 45 minutes and will ideally be a lunchtime slot UK time, but individual circumstances and different time-zones can certainly be catered for.
4) You can present for up to 20 minutes to cater for papers at different stages of development, followed by questions and a discussion. Feedback on particular aspects of your paper (e.g., theoretical framework, methodology, conclusions etc) can be requested.
If you have a paper idea to present or any questions at all about the sessions please contact Emma: E.S.Hughes@liverpool.ac.uk
Many thanks.
First session – paper presentation
May 25th 12:00-12:45pm
Presenter: Dr Alex Wood (University of Birmingham): “Platform Precarity: surviving algorithmic insecurity in the gig economy “
Co-author: Vili Lehdonvirta
Digitalization and the use of algorithms have raised concerns regarding the future of work; the gig economy being identified by some as particularly concerning. Yet academic research is inconsistent as to whether this sector constitutes precarious work. We attempt to reconcile contrasting existing accounts by developing a new model for gig economy precarity. In doing so we draw on 81 interviews in addition to participant observations to highlight the role of platform reputation in shaping experiences of traditional socio-economic insecurity. We also demonstrate that gig economy platforms produce a novel form of insecurity, which we term, ‘algorithmic insecurity’. This relates to the vulnerability and fear that workers experience as a result of working in an unstable and opaque environment in which platforms use customer-generated ratings to score workers, and algorithms to amplify the consequences of those scores. We also detail how workers respond to this capricious environment through unpaid labor, digital communities, and individual resistance. The aim of this qualitative research is to generate a model that can be tested quantitatively, as a first step towards this aim we draw on European survey data to provide tentative support for the existence of algorithmic insecurity beyond our interview participants.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3795375
Zoom details:
https://liverpool-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/91407813891?pwd=TUhFUVk0QXRmd3FmL0pzOXlYUWpTUT09
Meeting ID: 914 0781 3891
Passcode: BUIRA2021!
6th May 2021
Revised Submission Deadline May 24th, 2021
Registration is now open https://www.ileraworldcongress2021.se
The congress fee is 300 SEK (cc. 30 EURO) excl. VAT. There is a reduced fee of 150 SEK (cc.15 EURO) excl. VAT for PhD-students and students.
The Study Group will meet online 11-12.30 (CET) Monday 21st June 2021. All Congress participants are invited to attend and present at the meeting.
The Group covers all types of flexible working and includes part-time, telework, home/distance working, shift work, flexible hours, compressed working week, zero hours contracts, freelance, agency and other temporary arrangements. The aim is to bring together scholars with an interest in this area to network, present, and discuss work in progress or recently completed.
When the group started over 25 years ago, flexible working was considered ‘non-standard’ work. Since then, flexible working practices have proliferated to the extent that they are no longer considered atypical in many economies. Events such as the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 accelerated the spread of home and reduced hours working, and the longer-term economic consequences have implications for this trend towards flexibility. However, while the context is changing, many issues remain the same, including who benefits from these arrangements, how are they are regulated, the social and economic impact, and the role of governments and organisations.
Papers presented at the congresses are theoretical and empirical and address the topic at the macro, organisational or individual level, and in specific national, regional, sector or organisational settings. In common with much research into employment relations, they largely draw on studies carried out in the West. However, research in other regions is growing and we also look forward to learning more about this and the insights it gives from a variety of national contexts. The next few years will be an interesting time for research in this area.
Abstracts of papers on any aspect of flexible working are invited. They should be about 500 words and include:
Please send the abstract as a word file to c.edwards@kingston.ac.uk; clare.kelliher@cranfield.ac.uk by May 24th, 2021 at the latest.
4th May 2021
Karlstad University are advertising a vacancy for a Senior Lecturer in Working Life Science.
Eligibility for the post includes a PhD and a track record in research and teaching in industrial relations/HRM or other work and employment related areas.
For informal enquiries, please contact Robert MacKenzie (robert.mackenzie@kau.se)
Closing date for applications is 31st May 2021.
Full details can be found at: https://kau.varbi.com/en/what:job/jobID:395772/
4th May 2021
Centre for Employment Relations, Innovation & Change
Climate change, just transition and the workplace –
Results of a survey with UK workers
presented by Jo Cutter and Vera Trappmann
(CERIC, Leeds University Business School)
Wednesday, 5th of May, 14:00 - 15:30
Moving to rapidly reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions will require fundamental shifts in technological and economic systems, socio-political structures and modes of organizing with consequential impacts on work and employment.
Jo Cutter’s research focuses on organisational change, systems of skill formation and worker representation. She is currently undertaking research on these themes in relation to two areas: the impact of climate change mitigation strategies on work, jobs and skills and the re-shaping of UK labour mobility and workers’ rights resulting from the 2016 EU ‘Brexit’ Referendum.
Vera Trappmann has a strong record in research on the transition process from socialism to capitalism in Central and Eastern Europe. Her research covered business elites, company restructuring, individual workers’ responses to systemic change, as well labour market policies and civil society reorganisation. Her work is of comparative nature. The interplay between institutions and actors’ choices interests her in a number of areas: Precarious Work, Voice and Labour Contestations, Responses to Climate Change, Restructuring, or Corporate Social Responsibility. Vera is the founder of the cross-faculty Research Network on Work Labour and Climate Change.
4th May 2021
Book for teaching:
Arise: Power, Strategy and Union Resurgence
Message from Jane Holgate, j.holgate@leeds.ac.uk
Dear colleagues
I have a book due out in August and I have been asked by the publisher for a lists of colleagues who might be interested in an e-copy for teaching purposes. If that applies to you can you let me know the following
1. your name
2. your email
3. your institution
4. your role
5. the course you teach on
Many thanks
Jane
Arise: Power, Strategy and Union Resurgence - Wildcat (Paperback)
Jane Holgate (author)
https://www.waterstones.com/book/arise/jane-holgate/9780745344027
In Arise, Jane Holgate argues that unions must revisit their understanding of power in order to regain influence and confront capital. Drawing on two decades of research and organising experience, Holgate examines the structural inertia of today's unions from a range of perspectives: from strategic choice, leadership and union democracy to politics, tactics and the agency afforded to rank-and-file members.
In the midst of a neoliberal era of economic crisis and political upheaval, the labour movement stands at a crossroads. Union membership is on the rise, but the 'turn to organising' has largely failed to translate into meaningful gains for workers. There is considerable discussion about the lack of collectivism among workers due to casualisation, gig work and precarity, yet these conditions were standard in the UK when workers built the foundations of the 19th-century trade union movement.
Drawing on history and case studies of unions developing and using power effectively, this book offers strategies for moving beyond the pessimism that prevails in much of today's union movement. By placing power analysis back at the heart of workers' struggle, Holgate shows us that transformational change is not only possible, but within reach.
Publisher: Pluto Press
ISBN: 9780745344027
Number of pages: 272
Dimensions: 215 x 135 mm
4th May 2021
CENTRAL LONDON BUIRA SEMINAR: The transforming employment relation
Prof Valeria Pulignano (KU Leuven) on Emerging ‘Grey Zones’ at the Interface of Work and Home: Advancing Research and Theory on Precarious Work (with Glenn Morgan, Univ. Bristol)
Prof Patricia Leighton (University of South Wales) on Precarious working: causes, compexities and responses, but maybe better ways forward?
Thursday 20th May 2021, 16.30pm – 18.00pm virtual Zoom seminar
For further details and to reserve a place, contact Linda Clarke (clarkel@wmin.ac.uk), who will send you a link before the seminar
This virtual London BUIRA seminar is focused on the transformation of the employment relation and we are fortunate to have two expert speakers. Valeria Pulignano addresses the challenge posed by the growth of precarious work to generate significant rethinking of the future directions of work. Especially, it requires to focus on the increasing importance of ‘grey zones’ at the interface between the sphere of public (paid) work and private home (domestic) work. Between these two spheres, a series of ‘grey zones’ is emerging, characterized by work that is unpaid but necessary to engage in the public sphere of paid work. At the same time, this work relies on a private sphere that can support such ‘grey zones’, often by making the domestic sphere more oriented to the marketability of its participants. A distinctive framework is presented for understanding the reconfiguration of precarious work.
This is followed by Patricia Leighton, who will speak about her recent book with Tui McKeown, Work in Challenging and Uncertain Times: the changing employment relationship (2020) (see https://www.routledge.com/Work-in-Challenging-and-Uncertain-Times-The-Changing-Employment-Relationship/Leighton-McKeown/p/book/9780367897482).This identified a range of issues, from ‘fragmentation’ in relationships, health and wellbeing, insecurities, skills development and the use of technology. COVID-19 has worsened the position of those already precarious in areas such as hospitality, ‘bank nurses’, supply teachers and interpreters. The Taylor Report, 2017, proposed new ‘rights’ to redress the situation but legislation has had limited effect, especially with COVID and with contract law limiting protections and liabilities. This raises the question: Is it better to impose duties and responsibilities on the beneficiaries of labour markets than provide hard to enforce rights and will new types of unionism have a key role to play?
Valeria Pulignano is Professor of Sociology at the Center for Sociological Research (CESO) at KU Leuven. Her research lies in employment (industrial) relations and labour markets, their changing nature and implications for voice at work and inequality as differences in wages, working conditions, job quality and wellbeing. She is currently coordinating an ERC AdG ResPecTMe research project on “Resolving Precariousness: Advancing the Theory and Measurement of Precariousness Across the Paid/Unpaid Continuum” see https://soc.kuleuven.be/ceso/wo/erlm/respectme and she is also Partner in the EU WorkYP “Working and Yet Poor”. Among her recent books Shifting Solidarities. (2020, Palgrave-MacMillan) with I. Van Hoyweghen and G. Meyers.
Patricia Leighton is Professor Emeritus at the University of South Wales, UK – former Jean Monnet Professor of European Law. She is currently Professor of European Law at the IPAG Business School, France and a member of their research group. Her research and publishing interests are employment relationships, atypical contracts and self-employment. She has undertaken a wide range of projects funded by governmental and public bodies including the European Commission and ILO, and is the author of several books on employment contracts and their management,
The seminar is an opportunity to air and discuss these issues in an open forum and consider their implications for industrial relations. Anyone interested is welcome to attend.
27th April 2021
We invite you to join us in commemorating the life and work of Robert Taylor, former labour editor of the Financial Times and the Observer, who sadly passed away on 6 August 2020.
In a career spanning more than thirty years, Robert made notable contributions to journalism, research and policy analysis. He produced a series of highly regarded papers for the ESRC’s Future of Work Programme (1998-2005) and two influential volumes on trade unions and work: The Future of the Trade Unions (1994); and The TUC: From the General Strike to the New Unionism (2000).
The webinar in Robert’s memory is hosted by the Industrial Relations Research Unit, University of Warwick. The event on Wednesday 26 May 2021, 10:00 – 12:00 will address the following themes, all of which reflect Robert’s interests:
- Developments in the world of work during Robert’s career as a journalist, commentator and researcher: the changing role of trade unions and collective bargaining; the role of the TUC and the capacity of organised labour to influence public policy; trade unions and the Labour Party – the role of organised labour in a social democratic economy
- The state of the UK labour market: with a particular emphasis on Robert’s contribution to the ESRC Future of Work Programme, and the extent of change, challenges and opportunities in the world of work.
- Restoring dignity to labour: meeting the challenges of globalisation, Brexit, technology and climate change.
The webinar will reflect Robert’s contribution to academic/practitioner discussions with particular reference to the values that he expressed in his work: commitment to a social democratic economy, industrial democracy and the need to recast the UK’s economic and social settlement to reflect changing circumstances.
Speakers include: Rt Hon Alan Johnson; Lord John Monks; John Cruddas MP; Kate Dearden, Head of Research, Policy and External Relations, Community; Professor Peter Nolan, University of Leicester; and Dr Manuela Galetto, Industrial Relations Research Unit.
Given the constraints of the Covid-19 restrictions, the event will take the form of a two hour webinar, with speaker contributions of around 10 minutes and an opportunity for discussion.
If you would like to join us on Wednesday 26 May 2021, 10:00 – 12:00 please register your interest via the Eventbrite page here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/robert-taylor-memorial-webinar-tickets-151948216205
27th April 2021
This year BUIRA organises a one-day pre-conference Doctoral Workshop, which will take place in online on Monday 12th July 2021 (the afternoon prior to the main BUIRA Annual Conference: Time TBC). This workshop offers a unique opportunity to get to know fellow academics and postgraduate research students in the field, exercise critical thinking and receive constructive feedback to your ideas from an expert outside of your supervisory team.
Please submit abstracts to register your interest by Tuesday 18th May 2021. We will then be in touch to confirm your place. The deadline for the ‘full paper’ or any written work you intend to submit is Friday 18th June 2021. Please see full guidelines on the BUIRA website and submit via e-mail: admin@buira.org.
The session will be chaired by Professor Miguel Martínez Lucio, co-director of the Work & Equalities Institute (AMBS, University of Manchester) and Co-editor in Chief of New Technology Work and Employment. Miguel will be joined by several critical friends and experts in their respective fields including: Robert MacKenzie (Karlstat University, Sweden); Peter Prowse (Sheffield Hallam University); Tony Dundon (AMBS and University of Limerick); Jane Holgate (University of Leeds); Peter Turnbull (University of Bristol); Jo McBride (University of Durham); Vera Trappmann (University of Leeds); Chris Forde (University of Leeds) and others TBC.
We are also now accepting submissions for the Doctoral Prize linked to the 2021 BUIRA conference, sponsored by the BJIR (full guidelines on the BUIRA website). Please also note that we are happy to accept the same submission for both the Doctoral Workshop and the Doctoral Prize (max. 4,000 words).
22nd April 2021
Central London BUIRA Seminar: The transforming employment relation
Prof Valeria Pulignano (KU Leuven) on Emerging ‘Grey Zones’ at the Interface of Work and Home: Advancing Research and Theory on Precarious Work (with Glenn Morgan, Univ. Bristol)
Prof Patricia Leighton (University of South Wales) on Precarious working: causes, compexities and responses, but maybe better ways forward?
Thursday 20th May 2021, 16.30pm – 18.00pm virtual Zoom seminar
For further details and to reserve a place, contact Linda Clarke (clarkel@wmin.ac.uk), who will send you a link before the seminar
This virtual London BUIRA seminar is focused on the transformation of the employment relation and we are fortunate to have two expert speakers. Valeria Pulignano addresses the challenge posed by the growth of precarious work to generate significant rethinking of the future directions of work. Especially, it requires to focus on the increasing importance of ‘grey zones’ at the interface between the sphere of public (paid) work and private home (domestic) work. Between these two spheres, a series of ‘grey zones’ is emerging, characterized by work that is unpaid but necessary to engage in the public sphere of paid work. At the same time, this work relies on a private sphere that can support such ‘grey zones’, often by making the domestic sphere more oriented to the marketability of its participants. A distinctive framework is presented for understanding the reconfiguration of precarious work.
This is followed by Patricia Leighton, who will speak about her recent book with Tui McKeown, Work in Challenging and Uncertain Times: the changing employment relationship (2020) (see https://www.routledge.com/Work-in-Challenging-and-Uncertain-Times-The-Changing-Employment-Relationship/Leighton-McKeown/p/book/9780367897482).This identified a range of issues, from ‘fragmentation’ in relationships, health and wellbeing, insecurities, skills development and the use of technology. COVID-19 has worsened the position of those already precarious in areas such as hospitality, ‘bank nurses’, supply teachers and interpreters. The Taylor Report, 2017, proposed new ‘rights’ to redress the situation but legislation has had limited effect, especially with COVID and with contract law limiting protections and liabilities. This raises the question: Is it better to impose duties and responsibilities on the beneficiaries of labour markets than provide hard to enforce rights and will new types of unionism have a key role to play?
Valeria Pulignano is Professor of Sociology at the Center for Sociological Research (CESO) at KU Leuven. Her research lies in employment (industrial) relations and labour markets, their changing nature and implications for voice at work and inequality as differences in wages, working conditions, job quality and wellbeing. She is currently coordinating an ERC AdG ResPecTMe research project on “Resolving Precariousness: Advancing the Theory and Measurement of Precariousness Across the Paid/Unpaid Continuum” see https://soc.kuleuven.be/ceso/wo/erlm/respectme and she is also Partner in the EU WorkYP “Working and Yet Poor”. Among her recent books Shifting Solidarities. (2020, Palgrave-MacMillan) with I. Van Hoyweghen and G. Meyers.
Patricia Leighton is Professor Emeritus at the University of South Wales, UK – former Jean Monnet Professor of European Law. She is currently Professor of European Law at the IPAG Business School, France and a member of their research group. Her research and publishing interests are employment relationships, atypical contracts and self-employment. She has undertaken a wide range of projects funded by governmental and public bodies including the European Commission and ILO, and is the author of several books on employment contracts and their management,
The seminar is an opportunity to air and discuss these issues in an open forum and consider their implications for industrial relations. Anyone interested is welcome to attend.
20th April 2021
The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on working women
Date: Tuesday 27 April 2021
Time: 13:00 – 14:30
Registration is via Eventbrite. https://bit.ly/Covid-19-and-working-women
The Covid-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on work and working lives, and there is a recognised need to consider the issue of differential impacts across demographic groups. During this event hosted by the Work and Equalities Institute Isabel Tavora (Work and Equalities Institute), Ros Bragg (Director of Maternity Action), Zoe Young (Director of Half the Sky) and Sian Elliott (Women’s Equality Policy Officer at the TUC) will consider the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on working women looking at issues such as equality at work, flexible work, parental support, and pregnant workers.
Please feel free to circulate this more widely.
Lindsay Endell, Work and Equalities Institute Manager
20th April 2021
OBITUARY - Professor Mick Marchington
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1748-8583.12345
Mick Marchington, emeritus Professor of Human Resource Management at Alliance Manchester Business School (AMBS), University of Manchester, and former Editor‐in‐chief (2005–2010) of the Human Resource Management Journal (HRMJ), died suddenly on February 24, aged 71, while doing something he loved—walking the Derbyshire hills. He was born in the Derbyshire hills and returned to live there in the 1990s with his wife Lorrie and two children Lucy and Jack, who all survive him along with his two grandchildren, Noah and Sophie.
Mick's academic career was very much forged in Manchester. Following a first‐class degree in Chemical Engineering at UMIST, he opted for a Master's in Management Science, also in UMIST. After a spell as a researcher at Aston and 8 years at the University of Central Lancashire, he returned to UMIST in 1986, where he was promoted to professor in 1995. He remained in Manchester until his retirement in 2011. Mick was an active and committed teacher and scholar, building research teams and the FairWork Research Centre, which is now merged into the Work and Equalities Institute (WEI). At retirement, he took a part‐time professorship at the University of Strathclyde but remained living in the North West and very much connected to the research group at AMBS and WEI that he had been so committed to developing during his 25 years at Manchester.
Mick was a significant contributor to the establishment of HRM as a central teaching and research subject in business schools. His interest in developing the subject is evident in his two stints as journal editor, first as Editor of the Employee Relations (1988–1991), second as Editor‐in‐chief of HRMJ. It was under his leadership that HRMJ achieved entry into the all important Web of Science rankings, establishing it as a top‐ranked international journal.
His approach to HRM was firmly in the more pluralist school of HRM that rooted the subject in a strong critical and social science tradition and considered it very much a complement to and not a substitute for the study of employee or industrial relations. Mick's positon as friendly critic to dominant trends in HRM is evident not only in, for example, his effective demolition of best practice HRM in the International Journal of Human Resource Management in 2000 but also in his 2015 conceptual piece in HRM Review where he warns that HRM could end up withering away unless it stopped being overly concerned with pleasing top management by narrowing its focus to talent and leadership management and short‐term performance issues, to the neglect of other stakeholders and the organisation's wider social responsibilities. Towards the end of Mick's career, he researched and published on the need to locate HRM within a stronger understanding of the changing contextual forces. Drawing on data he collected in the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, he pointed to both opportunities and constraints emerging from softer forms of regulation by voluntary agencies and consultancies. Mick's critiques of aspects of HRM were motivated by his passion for and contribution to the study of employee voice and engagement. Evident throughout Mick's work is a deep caring and pluralist ontology connecting multiple networks and alliances in pursuit of a fairer voice agenda. His approach was also notable for recognising that those employed in supply chains or under complex contractual arrangements are even more at risk of being deprived of fair access to voice and decent working conditions.
Mick was widely regarded as the UK's leading expert on issues of employee voice, the author of choice for all handbook reviews of the subject area as well as a co‐editor of an Oxford Handbook of Participation. His most renowned contributions stem from a large‐scale project for the Employment Department in 1989–1991. He became particularly well known for his development of the ‘waves concept' of employee involvement and participation. In contrast to the then dominant cycles of control thesis, where opportunities for voice were argued to rise and fall with the extent to which management felt under threat, the waves approach helped to explain the multiple schemes developing at the firm‐level through the 1980s–1990s, at a time when labour was in retreat in terms of union density and collective power. He showed that the ‘form and depth' of voice varied across contexts and time, combining individualistic initiatives running alongside (not necessarily in opposition to) collective structures of participation, but often wrapped around a new right‐wing political discourse that reinforced managerial power, and not always for the better. His research tradition fostered the development of systematic case study evidence that charted a shift to newer configurations of both direct and indirect forms of social dialogue and managerial influence.
Mick's second major research contribution stems from his leadership of an innovative project under the ESRC's future of work programme, to widen the HRM lens beyond the typical single organisation with strong borders, to the more fuzzy and complex networks of relationships in which organisations are embedded and which affect both the management of and the experience of employment. Together with a large team of Manchester colleagues, Mick authored an influential book on Fragmenting Work, a topic arguably of increasing relevance in today's employment landscape fractured by the growth of outsourcing, offshoring, agency contractors and the growing gig economy.
Collaboration was always a key characteristic of Mick's approach to research. The opportunities it provided to develop his more junior colleagues and his doctoral students for Mick were as important as the research itself. Mick was a dedicated and extremely effective teacher and mentor. He was able to pass on his own infectious passion and enthusiasm to his colleagues and students while also demanding of everyone a commitment to meet expected standards of excellence and timekeeping. His passion for pedagogy saw him taking on two major leadership roles, first at UMIST where as a young professor he became the Dean of Management Studies, responsible for academic quality and delivery of all management teaching in UMIST. The second leadership role was outside the university at the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development (CIPD), where his outstanding contributions as both Chief Examiner (1994–2002) and Chief Moderator for Standards (2002–2006) led to him being made a Chartered Companion of the CIPD in 2003. Mick strived for more than 30 years to establish and maintain standards of excellence in the HR profession, taking on major tasks of both curriculum development and monitoring of standards. He was also the main author of a key textbook on HRM at Work, now in its seventh edition that has been used as a basis for CIPD education since 1996. At the time of Mick's sad passing, he was still working with and advising the CIPD on its new educational map and standards.
Just as Mick held a broad range of posts in his academic career, so he had a broad range of interests in his private life, many of which he actively shared with his partner Lorrie and his children. He had three lifelong passions: first sport, particularly football which he played until he was over 50. Being a Derbyshire lad, he supported Derby County football club; then when his children both became Manchester City supporters—so did he. Nothing ever replaced playing football—but in his later life golf played a frustrating part. Travel also loomed large. From heading out on the hippie trail overland to India in the early 1970s, Mick together with Lorrie was a frequent traveller and explorer, often combining adventures with academic placements and posts. These expeditions also often involved his third passion walking, pursued not only in his much loved Derbyshire hills, but also right across the world—from New Zealand, to Peru, with many places in between.
Mick had a huge number of personal friends—from both work and from his active personal life. He was a loyal, entertaining and humble man who will be much missed.
Acknowledgements
By Jill Rubery (Work & Equalities Institute, Alliance Manchester Business School, University of Manchester) and Tony Dundon (Kemmy Business School, University of Limerick; and Work & Equalities Institute, University of Manchester).
20th April 2021
Wanted: reviewers of the below books (please note they may only be e-books). If you are interested in reviewing then please let Jane Holgate - e-mail j.holgate@leeds.ac.uk - know when you could complete the review - and, if a physical copy is available, an address where you would like the book to be sent.
The Cambridge International Handbook of Lean Production. Diverging Theories and New Industries around the World
Editors:Thomas Janoski, University of Kentucky, Darina Lepadatu, Kennesaw State University, Georgia
Experiencing the New World of Work
Edited by Jeremy Aroles, Durham University, François-Xavier de Vaujany, Université Paris-Dauphine, Karen Dale, Lancaster University
What about the workers?
The Conservative Party and the organised working class in British politics
By Andrew Taylor
https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526103611/
Sarosh Kuruvilla's new book Private Regulation of Labor Standards in Global Supply Chains: Problems, Progress, and Prospects from Cornell Press.
20th April 2021
13th April 2021
13th April 2021
CENTRAL LONDON BUIRA SEMINAR:
Higher education, marketisation, REF/TEF & employment relations
Prof Dorothy Bishop (Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford) on REF and TEF: Whose interests do they serve?
Dr Olga Kuznetsova (Manchester Metropolitan University) on Employee Relations in Marketising Universities: a case study
Thursday 15th April 2021, 16.30am – 18.00pm virtual Zoom seminar
For further details and to reserve a place, contact Linda Clarke (clarkel@wmin.ac.uk), who will send you a link before the seminar
This virtual London BUIRA seminar is focused on changes in higher education and their implications for employment relations and we are fortunate to have two expert speakers. The seminar begins with considerations by Dorothy Bishop of the history of how the Research Excellence Framework and Teaching Excellence Frameworks came into being, the rationale for their development and their subsequent evolution into their current forms. Public accountability and transparency in the allocation of funds was the stated motivation for developing the REF, but it has since taken over other roles, and now is used as a management tool. The stated reason for needing a Teaching Excellence Framework was to force universities to take teaching more seriously, and to provide information for prospective students. In practice, both REF and TEF have had unintended consequences, and in both cases, there are reasons to question the validity of the processes used to allocate rankings.
Dorothy will be followed by Olga Kuznetsova who will speak about her research with Prof Andrei Kuznetsov, published as: ‘And then there were none: what a UCU Archive tells us about employee relations in marketising universities’ in Studies in Higher Education. The study engages evidence from a University and College Union branch archive to explore developments in employee relations (ER) that reflect the organisation-level effects of marketisation of UK universities. The evidence exposes points of strain in ER at a level of professional divide between managers and academics, and helps to understand their root. It also reveals new ethical challenges (some of which are connected to the demands and constraints put by REF and TEF) faced by the academic profession and individual academics. Some recent reflections will be drawn on the meaning of 'distant' and 'distance' in management.
Dorothy Bishop, FRS, FBA, FMed Sci is a member of the executive committee of the Council for Defence of British Universities, which she joined after becoming concerned about the way in which the REF was distorting academic life in the UK. With the advent of TEF in 2018 her concerns multiplied, with evidence that the statistical framework behind the evaluation was deeply flawed – concerns which have since been amplified by the Royal Statistical Society. She has blogged about these issues: relevant posts can be found by Googling 'Bishopblog catalogue'. She also discusses academic life on Twitter, as @deevybee.
Dr Olga Kuznetsova is Reader in Comparative Business Studies at Manchester Metropolitan University.
The seminar is an opportunity to air and discuss these issues in an open forum and consider their implications for industrial relations. Anyone interested is welcome to attend.
13th April 2021
The next meeting in the UCS work-in commemoration series of meetings, organised by the Jimmy Reid Foundation and supported by UNTE Scotland, is on the eve of the 2021 STUC Congress at 6pm on Sunday 18 April.
It is called 'We are not rats! From UCS to BiFab and beyond - the struggle for decent work'.
The speakers are Mary Alexander, UNITE Scotland deputy regional secretary, Linda Hamill, a UCS work-in veteran, and Bob MacGregor, the UNITE Scotland officer who led on the BiFab occupation of 2017.
Further details here including where to sign up to are here:
7th April 2021
The Virtual Conference is on the theme COVID-19 and the world of work: Towards a human-centred recovery from 6-9 July 2021.
The Conference is organized by the International Labour Office (ILO) in collaboration with:
To access the Call for Abstracts and for further details please visit the conference website at: https://www.ilo.org/rdw2021
The deadline for abstract submission is 15 April 2021.
We hope you will participate this year in the RDW Conference!
7th April 2021
Reflections by Ed Heery - 40 Years as an Industrial Relationist
Sign up here:
This Special BUIRA Webinar welcomes Professor Emeritus Edmund Heery, who will discuss his reflections of 40 years as an 'Industrial Relationist'.
Edmund Heery is Professor Emeritus of Employment Relations at Cardiff Business School
Ed proposes to cover three topics:
1. Review his own work and identify the main themes within it focusing on the work he has done on a) pay, b) unions, c) new actors, d) reviewing the field.
2. Reflect on changes in the field that he has encountered in his 40 years as an Industrial Relationist.
3. Some speculation on current developments in the real world of IR: a) neo-paternalism amongst employers, b) the resilience of the labour movement and its imperviousness to arguments about renewal, c) the possible emergence of a more active state - identifying where we are seeing this and what form it takes.
Prof. Edmund Heery - Biography
Edmund Heery is Professor Emeritus at Cardiff Business School, where he worked for 25 years before retiring in December 2020. Ed began his career at North East London Polytechnic (now UEL) in 1980, working as a researcher on payment systems in the coalmining industry, led by Christine Edwards. Subsequently, we worked at the LSE, City University, Imperial College, and Kingston University before joining Cardiff in 1995. Over a long career Ed Heery has researched a variety of issues within UK industrial relations and published widely. He is the author of three monographs, Management Control and Union Power: A Study of Labour Relations in Coalmining (with Christine Edwards), Working for the Union: British Trade Union Officers (with John Kelly), and Framing Work: Unitary, Pluralist and Critical Perspectives in the 21st Century. A fourth monograph, The Real Living Wage: Civil Regulation and the Employment Relationship (with Deborah Hann and David Nash) will be published shortly by Oxford University Press. Ed continues to be an active researcher, despite retirement, and this latest book will present the findings of an extended case study of the UK’s Living Wage campaign.
New BUIRA members welcome! https://www.buira.org/membership
7th April 2021
The Work and Equalities Institute invite you to their upcoming PGR seminar "Conducting remote research" which will be held on 9th April from 1pm to 2:30 pm. Questions that will be asked are: ‘How to build rapport without being physically present?’ ‘How to deal with access when interviewing remotely?’ The session will discuss inclusive approaches to remote research during the pandemic led by Professor Lee-Ann Fenge (University of Bournemouth) who will discuss inclusive approaches to research and Dr Alberta Giorgi (University of Bergamo) who will suggest alternative digital approaches in times of remote research. The spaks will highlight how to conduct participative and co-productive methods with vulnerable groups during the crisis and choose the appropriate qualitative methods. Event Registration: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/conducting-remote-research-pgr-work-equalities-institute-tickets-147143400873
30th March 2021
We are holding a Manchester Industrial Relations Society meeting on 6 May. On Tuesday 23 March, the Court of Appeal overturned the criminal convictions of the Shrewsbury 24, a group of trade unionists in the construction industry who were convicted and in some cases imprisoned on charges of unlawful assembly, conspiracy to intimidate, and affray following the 1972 national building workers strike. A 47 year campaign for justice has resulted in the judgements being overturned, and on 6 May MIRS will be holding a meeting to mark this historic result. Ralph Darlington, Professor Emeritus in Employment Relations, University of Salford (and the author of a chapter on the 1972 building workers strike in his co-authored book with Dave Lyddon, Glorious Summer), Eileen Turnbull (the researcher for the Shrewsbury 24 campaign who discovered all of the crucial evidence that saw the convictions overturned), and Terry Renshaw (one of the 24 pickets, who was convicted of unlawful assembly in 1973) will be speaking at the event. The meeting will be held over Zoom at 6pm-7.30pm on 6 May – the link is available on booking through the following Eventbrite link.
30th March 2021
To mark a year since millions of workers began to leave the workplace and work remotely from home. The STUC is releasing preliminary findings of the Covid-19 and Working from Home Survey undertaken by Professors Phil Taylor, Dora Scholarios (University of Strathclyde) and Professor Debra Howcroft (University of Manchester).
Read the report here http://www.stuc.org.uk/files/Policy/Research-papers/WFH_Preliminary%20Findings.pdf
The survey reveals a very mixed picture, with winners and losers over the past year. There are widely differing views about more permanent working from home (WFH) arrangements post-pandemic. The majority of the respondents were those who normally worked in office environments. Respondents were from Telecoms (24%), Local Government (18%), Financial Services (15%) and Civil Service (15%). Nearly all were unions members (thus likely to generally experience better protected environments). This suggests that negative experiences and worries might be higher among the entire cohort currently WFH.
Responding to the survey findings STUC General Secretary Roz Foyer said:
“This work reflects what we have been hearing from unions across Scotland. The experiences of working from home and attitudes toward future home working are very varied. Significant numbers of workers have experienced work intensification and stress over the past year, yet for many others the overall experience has been positive.
“Foyer warned against blanket changes to work arrangements or sweeping office closures
“A key conclusion is that many workers are positive about some degree of future home working, but this must be optional, flexible and only undertaken through negotiation. Millions of workers were not initially employed to work from home and have a right to resist imposed changes. There has never been a more important time for these workers to join a union.”
Professor Phil Taylor said:
“There is a majority preference from workers of wanting to spend two days or less in the workplace. However, a ‘blanket’ approach is inappropriate.
“There is also compelling evidence that WFH is not desirable for a significant minority. The reasons are many and complex, but include inadequate domestic workstation arrangements, space constraints, compromised work-life balance, gendered experiences of domestic and household burdens and loneliness and isolation.
“Employers will need to accommodate, and unions to represent, multiple, often contrasting, worker interests and preferences. The development of agile or hybrid arrangements should follow best practice by being fully negotiated with unions.”
Experience of WFH
Attitudes towards post-pandemic WFH
Contract and job security fears
30th March 2021
Work and Labor Relations in the Construction Industry:
30th March 2021
CENTRAL LONDON BUIRA SEMINAR:
Higher education, marketisation, REF/TEF & employment relations
Prof Dorothy Bishop (Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford) on REF and TEF: Whose interests do they serve?
Dr Olga Kuznetsova (Manchester Metropolitan University) on Employee Relations in Marketising Universities: a case study
Thursday 15th April 2021, 16.30am – 18.00pm virtual Zoom seminar
For further details and to reserve a place, contact Linda Clarke (clarkel@wmin.ac.uk), who will send you a link before the seminar
This virtual London BUIRA seminar is focused on changes in higher education and their implications for employment relations and we are fortunate to have two expert speakers. The seminar begins with considerations by Dorothy Bishop of the history of how the Research Excellence Framework and Teaching Excellence Frameworks came into being, the rationale for their development and their subsequent evolution into their current forms. Public accountability and transparency in the allocation of funds was the stated motivation for developing the REF, but it has since taken over other roles, and now is used as a management tool. The stated reason for needing a Teaching Excellence Framework was to force universities to take teaching more seriously, and to provide information for prospective students. In practice, both REF and TEF have had unintended consequences, and in both cases, there are reasons to question the validity of the processes used to allocate rankings.
Dorothy will be followed by Olga Kuznetsova who will speak about her research with Prof Andrei Kuznetsov, published as: ‘And then there were none: what a UCU Archive tells us about employee relations in marketising universities’ in Studies in Higher Education. The study engages evidence from a University and College Union branch archive to explore developments in employee relations (ER) that reflect the organisation-level effects of marketisation of UK universities. The evidence exposes points of strain in ER at a level of professional divide between managers and academics, and helps to understand their root. It also reveals new ethical challenges (some of which are connected to the demands and constraints put by REF and TEF) faced by the academic profession and individual academics. Some recent reflections will be drawn on the meaning of 'distant' and 'distance' in management.
Dorothy Bishop, FRS, FBA, FMed Sci is a member of the executive committee of the Council for Defence of British Universities, which she joined after becoming concerned about the way in which the REF was distorting academic life in the UK. With the advent of TEF in 2018 her concerns multiplied, with evidence that the statistical framework behind the evaluation was deeply flawed – concerns which have since been amplified by the Royal Statistical Society. She has blogged about these issues: relevant posts can be found by Googling 'Bishopblog catalogue'. She also discusses academic life on Twitter, as @deevybee.
Dr Olga Kuznetsova is Reader in Comparative Business Studies at Manchester Metropolitan University.
The seminar is an opportunity to air and discuss these issues in an open forum and consider their implications for industrial relations. Anyone interested is welcome to attend.
30th March 2021
23rd March 2021
BUIRA History of Industrial Relations Study Group
Working Mothers: 150 Years of Unpaid Care Work and Paid Employment
17.00-18.45 Thursday 25 March 2021 (through Zoom)
A McKinsey Report (2020) recently concluded that women’s jobs were globally more at risk as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic than men’s, first because women are more likely to act as unpaid carers than men, and second because women work disproportionately in those sectors most vulnerable to decline (such as retail, hotels and catering).
This seminar examines the division commonly made between unpaid care work and paid employment in historical and global perspective, particularly in the light of the pandemic, and its implications for equality at work. It also investigates the perception of unpaid care work as lacking value and esteem.
For further details or to reserve a place, please e-mail Michael Gold (m.gold@rhul.ac.uk) or Linda Clarke (clarkel@wmin.ac.uk). We’ll send the Zoom link a few days before the seminar to those who have reserved a place.
Programme:
17.00-17.15: Welcome and introduction: Michael Gold and Linda Clarke (Chairs)
17.15 – 17.45: Helen McCarthy
Gender, Maternalism and Intellectual Biography: Beatrice Webb and Women’s Work, c. 1880s – 1919
This paper focuses on the thought of Beatrice Webb (1858-1943) and how it related to the life she led as the daughter of an upper-class industrialist who moved through the worlds of philanthropy, social investigation and socialist agitation between the 1880s and the end of the First World War. The paper suggests the value of adopting a biographical lens for understanding how beliefs about gender and the family become embedded in labour markets and social policies. Drawing together the genres of feminist life-writing and intellectual biography, it explores the formation of such beliefs at the level of the individual, from the psychic processes shaping Webb’s interior self to the political and intellectual cultures through which she made her public mark.
17.45 – 18.15: Eileen Boris
‘Indispensable to All Working Women and to Mothers in the Home’: Global Labour Standards and the Care Work Economy, 1919-2021
‘Indispensable to All Working Women and to Mothers in the Home’: that is how the French organizer of garment outworkers Jeanne Bouvier characterized a proposal for an eight-hour day, forty-eight-hour week which a century ago became Convention No.1 of the newly formed International Labour Organization (ILO). In differentiating ‘mother in the home’ from ‘all working women,’ she reinforced the separation of mother work (care) from the world of employment that has haunted the formulation of global labour standards. Until the 2000s, paid care work mostly stood outside of ILO deliberations, while unpaid family care was seen predominantly as a special kind of activity, one performed out of love or duty. Whether the new care work economy, especially during COVID times, touted by the ILO as central for gender equality, merely relabels the old inequalities will depend on the struggles waged in its name.
18.15 – 18.45: Discussion
18.45: Close
*****
Our speakers:
Eileen Boris: Hull Professor of Feminist Studies (University of California, Santa Barbara). Most recent book: Making the Woman Worker. Precarious Labor and the Fight for Global Standards, 1919-2019 (Oxford University Press, 2019).
Helen McCarthy: Reader in Modern and Contemporary British History (University of Cambridge). Most recent book: Double Lives: A History of Working Motherhood (Bloomsbury, 2020).
Reference:
McKinsey Global Institute (2020) Covid-19 and Gender Equality: Countering the Regressive Effects, 15 July. Available at:
23rd March 2021
Blissett, E. (2021) The Two-Hundred-Million Pound Strike: The 2003 British Airways Walkout. Bern and Oxford, Peter Lang.
Book synopsis: The Two-Hundred-Million pound Strike: The 2003 British Airways Walkout describes and analyses the 2003, British Airways, Customer Service Agents (CSA), 24-hour unofficial strike. It examines the lead up to the dispute, in which negotiations failed to reach an agreement over the launch of BA’s Automatic Time Recording and Integrated Airport Resource Management systems, before focusing on the dispute itself and its eventual resolution.
Central to the book is the question: why did a group of union members, the majority of whom were young women, become so incensed at an imposed change to their working practices that they took unofficial strike action? This they did in the knowledge that they could all have been, legally, dismissed.
In analysing the strike, the book explores why BA’s management imposed such a controversial change to working practices on the company’s busiest weekend of the year. A decision which, allegedly, cost the company over £200,000,000, tarnished its reputation, and saw numerous senior managers lose their jobs.
How and why the CSAs three trade unions (the GMB Union, the Transport and General Workers Union and Amicus) reacted in such different ways to the unofficial strike, and then behaved so differently in the subsequent negotiations, is also central to this study.
Ed Blissett (PhD) is Senior Research Fellow in Employment Relations at the University of Hertfordshire. Prior to taking up this post Ed was, for over 20 years, a lay activist and then a senior Regional and National officer for three of Britain’s largest trade unions. His roles included six years as the Regional and National Officer for British Airways (BA) and then four years as Regional Secretary of the GMB London Region. These positions saw him play a central part in local and national union negotiations with BA, which granted him extensive first-hand knowledge of the 2003 strike and all the negotiations that preceded and followed the unofficial walkout. His background as a senior union officer at BA also assisted him in gaining unprecedented access to the unions lay reps, full-time officers and the airline’s managers, who played central roles in the 2003 strike and the ensuing negotiations.
23rd March 2021
The Impact of New Technologies on Warehouse Work and Beyond: Thursday 1st April at 17.00pm
Lisa Kresge (Researcher, UC Berkeley Labor Center)
Liz Blackshaw, Director of Global Campaigns, ITF
Craig Gent (Novara Media)
Kirsty Newsome (Professor of Employment Relations, University of Sheffield)
Contemporary Labour Issues in the Global Maritime Industry: Thursday 15th April at 17.00pm
Book talk: "Capitalism and the Sea" (Verso 2020)
Liam Campling (Professor of International Business and Development, Queen Mary University)
Alejandro Colas (Professor of International Relations, Department of Politics, Birkbeck)
If you would like to share and receive information on upcoming events, new publications and research projects, relevant news reports and worker organising in the logistics sector, please join our listserv through google groups or by emailing katy.fox-hodess@sheffield.ac.uk.
23rd March 2021
Durham University have received funding to undertake a project looking at the experience of mothers working in any area of Higher Education during the Covid-19 pandemic. Colleagues are from different academic departments and professional support services teams at Durham University who are part of the Mothers and Mothers-to-be Support (MAMS) Network.
The brief is:
The research will help to understand how all mothers working in HE with children aged 18 or under at home have experienced the pandemic, and the impact it has had on their health, wellbeing, and career. We are also looking at intersectional factors, such as ethnicity and disability, which put many women at a significant additional disadvantage. Our results will be used to try to influence policies at universities that address the institutionalised inequalities which the pandemic has magnified.
The UK-wide survey is open until Wednesday 24 March 2021. The short timeline is short due to funding constraints, and we can use all the help we can get to reach mothers in HE across the UK. Our survey only takes around ten minutes to complete. Here is the link: https://durham.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/covid19
23rd March 2021
23rd March 2021
To mark a year since millions of workers began to leave the workplace and work remotely from home. The STUC is releasing preliminary findings of the Covid-19 and Working from Home Survey undertaken by Professors Phil Taylor, Dora Scholarios (University of Strathclyde) and Professor Debra Howcroft (University of Manchester).
Read the report here http://www.stuc.org.uk/files/Policy/Research-papers/WFH_Preliminary%20Findings.pdf
The survey reveals a very mixed picture, with winners and losers over the past year. There are widely differing views about more permanent working from home (WFH) arrangements post-pandemic. The majority of the respondents were those who normally worked in office environments. Respondents were from Telecoms (24%), Local Government (18%), Financial Services (15%) and Civil Service (15%). Nearly all were unions members (thus likely to generally experience better protected environments). This suggests that negative experiences and worries might be higher among the entire cohort currently WFH.
Responding to the survey findings STUC General Secretary Roz Foyer said:
“This work reflects what we have been hearing from unions across Scotland. The experiences of working from home and attitudes toward future home working are very varied. Significant numbers of workers have experienced work intensification and stress over the past year, yet for many others the overall experience has been positive.
“Foyer warned against blanket changes to work arrangements or sweeping office closures
“A key conclusion is that many workers are positive about some degree of future home working, but this must be optional, flexible and only undertaken through negotiation. Millions of workers were not initially employed to work from home and have a right to resist imposed changes. There has never been a more important time for these workers to join a union.”
Professor Phil Taylor said:
“There is a majority preference from workers of wanting to spend two days or less in the workplace. However, a ‘blanket’ approach is inappropriate.
“There is also compelling evidence that WFH is not desirable for a significant minority. The reasons are many and complex, but include inadequate domestic workstation arrangements, space constraints, compromised work-life balance, gendered experiences of domestic and household burdens and loneliness and isolation.
“Employers will need to accommodate, and unions to represent, multiple, often contrasting, worker interests and preferences. The development of agile or hybrid arrangements should follow best practice by being fully negotiated with unions.”
Experience of WFH
Attitudes towards post-pandemic WFH
23rd March 2021
It is with great sadness that we convey the news that Emeritus Professor Willy Brown passed away unexpectedly on Thursday evening at his home near Cambridge.
Willy’s achievements in the industrial relations and labour economics fields were exceptional. For many decades Willy was an eminent scholar in these fields, not only in the United Kingdom but also internationally. He was arguably one of the most influential academics of his generation in both research and policy formulation.
Willy was Emeritus Master of Darwin College and Emeritus Professor of Industrial Relations at the University of Cambridge. He was previously the Director of the Industrial Relations Research Unit at the University of Warwick, which gained an international reputation for excellence and influence under his leadership, before becoming the Montague Burton Professor of Industrial Relations at the University of Cambridge from 1985 to his retirement in 2012.
Willy provided academic leadership through various senior administrative roles at Cambridge. He also served as President of the British Universities Industrial Relations Association from 1986 to 1989 and as a member of the Executive of the International Labour and Employment Relations Association (formerly the International Industrial Relations Association) from 1989 to 1995.
Willy held a number of significant government appointments in the UK including foundation member of the Low Pay Commission from 1997-2007 and as a senior member of the Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service Council and Panel of Arbitrators.
Willy was the author of many seminal journal articles and books including Piecework Bargaining (1973), The Changing Contours of British Industrial Relations (1981), The Evolution of the Modern Workplace (2009) and The Emerging Industrial Relations of China (2017). In 2002 he was made Commander of the British Empire for services to employment relations.
Willy was an Honorary Professor at Renmin University in Beijing and was instrumental in bringing together international and Chinese scholars to examine developments in Chinese employment relations. In 2015 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Sydney in recognition of his significant contributions to industrial relations scholarship and policy in Australia and internationally.
Notwithstanding Willy’s considerable academic accomplishments, his greatest impact may have been through his personal connections and friendships. Willy strived to make the world not only a better place but also a fairer place. In this respect he lived by example. Willy was a truly magnificent person with a unique capacity to speak with anyone on equal terms. He was so selfless, so humble, so generous, and so kind. Willy was greatly loved and will be sorely missed.
- Willy’s former doctoral students
4th August 2019
Following a successful conference hosted at Newcastle University, we're pleased to announce that a team from the University of Birmingham have become the BUIRA Stewards.
Many thanks to Jo McBride, Ana Lopes, Stewart Johnstone, Stephen Procter and Michael Brooks for their hard work running the association.
The Birmingham team is as follows:
Tony Dobbins – President
David J Bailey – Membership Officer
Genevieve Coderre-LaPalme – Events and Conference Officer
Andy Hodder – Secretary
Paul Lewis – Treasurer
Alex Wood – Communications Officer
21st July 2019
Professor in Organisational Studies and HRM Group, Essex Business School
The Organisation Studies and Human Resource Management Group at Essex Business School has a global reputation for high-quality research, education, and scholarship, with international expertise in areas including critical organisation studies, the sociology of work, workplace equality and diversity, and HRM. It is home to the University’s Centre for Work, Organization and Society, along with a range of innovative undergraduate and postgraduate degrees including its CIPD accredited MSc HRM, its newly launched MSc Organisational Change Management, and its PhD in HRM and Organisation Studies.
As part of a programme of academic expansion, we are now looking to appoint a talented and internationally established social scientist in the area of work and organisation studies. The successful candidate will play a leading role in further enhancing the research profile of both the Group and the School, as well as providing both an exceptional educational experience for our students and inclusive academic and administrative leadership to colleagues.
See more: https://hrorganiser.essex.ac.uk/tlive_webrecruitment/wrd/run/ETREC107GF.open?VACANCY_ID=212024OYPY&WVID=9918109NEm&LANG=USA
21st September 2021