Publication: Routledge Companion to Employment Relations

The recently published Routledge Companion to Employment Relations may be of interest to our members: 

https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Companion-to-Employment-Relations/Wilkinson-Dundon-Donaghey-Colvin/p/book/9781138911178

30th June 2018

Event: Disclosing versus concealing a mental health problem at work: what do we know and where do we go from here?

Professor Laurent Lapierre Telfer School of Management University of Ottowa, Canada

Wednesday 18th July2018

10:30 – 12:00 (coffee and tea at 10:15)

1.004 Dover St, University of Manchester.

Abstract

Mental health is a growing global concern. For example, 41% of Canadians are at high risk for mental health issues, and recent estimates suggest that 1 in 5 working-age Canadians are adversely affected by a mental health challenge each year. In the UK, the recent results of the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey show that 1 in 6 people over the age of 16 had a common mental health problem in the week prior to being interviewed, and that nearly half of adults think that they have had a diagnosable mental health condition at some point in their life. Mental health problems represent a significant cost to companies stemming from reduced productivity, absences, and turnover (e.g., £35 billion in 2017 in the UK according to the Centre for Mental Health). Despite a notable increase in public attention given to mental health, relatively little is known on how employers, and managers specifically, can best support their employees’ mental health. When struggling with one’s mental health, a highly promising first step toward receiving support at work is to disclose the struggle to one’s manager, who would often be best positioned to provide some type of accommodation. However, many individuals prefer to conceal their challenge, often out of fear of being disadvantaged or treated poorly because of the stigmatization of mental health problems. In this presentation, Prof Lapierre will provide an overview of the limited scholarship addressing employees’ disclosure of a mental health problem. He will also list a series of research questions that he believes should be addressed in order to offer organizations the means of ensuring that their managers create a work climate where their employees feel comfortable revealing their mental health problems, and where such revelation actually leads to positive outcomes.

About the Speaker

Dr Lapierre is the Ian Telfer Professor of Workplace Behaviour and Health. His research focuses mainly on two topics: Occupational health psychology and leadership. His work on the first topic has focused on the intersection of individuals’ work and family lives. He has strived to identify how organizational policies, individuals at work (supervisors and coworkers), employees themselves, and their families can each help them experience less work-family conflict, more work-family enrichment, and overall better health. In his work on leadership, Dr Lapierre has been giving particular attention to relational dynamics between managers (supervisors) and each of their employees (subordinates). More recently, he has focused on the influence that individuals’ acts of followership can have on others’ leadership.

28th June 2018

Vacancies at University College Dublin

Please apply by following the below web link: 

20th June 2018

[ILERA 2018 World Congress] Invitation to the ILERA Council Meeting 

Greetings from ILERA World Congress 2018!

18th June 2018

Event: The Skills and Employment Survey 2017

Productivity, Skills Trends and Fairness at Work in Britain:

First Findings from the Skills and Employment Survey 2017

Date: 1.00pm – 3.30pm, Thursday 19 July 2018
Venue: Church House, Dean’s Yard, Westminster, London SW1P 3NZ

The Skills and Employment Survey 2017 is the seventh in a series of surveys stretching back to the mid-1980s.  The results will be launched on 19 July 2018 at Church House, Westminster, London.

At this event the authors – Alan Felstead, Duncan Gallie, Francis Green and Golo Henseke – will present headline findings of the survey and outline policy implications relating to three themes:

·           Productivity: Almost a decade after the financial crisis productivity growth has failed to recover to its pre-recession level.  This survey gives the workers’ perspective on what drives productivity and what could be done to spark its revival.

·           Skills Trends: Substantial public and private investment in education and training make it essential that effective use is made of the skills produced.  This survey examines the evolution of job skills, the changing nature of the post-graduate labour market and the gendered pattern of job skills over the last two decades.

·           Fairness at Work: Employees’ views about how fairly their organisations treat them and their colleagues is key determinant of job-related well-being.  This survey shows how fairness at work is distributed and examines some of the factors affecting these beliefs.

The event will also mark the launch of the Job Quality Quiz (www.howgoodismyjob.com). 

The event is free, but places are limited and attendance will be by prior registration only.  If you would like to attend please e-mail alice@inanyevent-uk.com by 5 July 2018. (Email address has now been corrected, apologies for any inconvenience caused)

If you require any further information, please contact Alice Johnson-Jelf at the SES2017 Conference Desk on Tel: 01275 266000.

Three more themes – effort, participation and insecurity – will be covered at a second launch to be held on 3 October 2018 at Canada Water Culture Space, 21 Surrey Quays Rd, London SE16 7AR.

12th June 2018

Event: Productivity, Skills Trends and Fairness at Work in Britain: First Findings from the Skills and Employment Survey 2017

Productivity, Skills Trends and Fairness at Work in Britain:

First Findings from the Skills and Employment Survey 2017

Date: 1.00pm – 3.30pm, Thursday 19 July 2018
Venue: Church House, Dean’s Yard, Westminster, London SW1P 3NZ

The Skills and Employment Survey 2017 is the seventh in a series of surveys stretching back to the mid-1980s.  The results will be launched on 19 July 2018 at Church House, Westminster, London.

At this event the authors – Alan Felstead, Duncan Gallie, Francis Green and Golo Henseke – will present headline findings of the survey and outline policy implications relating to three themes:

·           Productivity: Almost a decade after the financial crisis productivity growth has failed to recover to its pre-recession level.  This survey gives the workers’ perspective on what drives productivity and what could be done to spark its revival.

·           Skills Trends: Substantial public and private investment in education and training make it essential that effective use is made of the skills produced.  This survey examines the evolution of job skills, the changing nature of the post-graduate labour market and the gendered pattern of job skills over the last two decades.

·           Fairness at Work: Employees’ views about how fairly their organisations treat them and their colleagues is key determinant of job-related well-being.  This survey shows how fairness at work is distributed and examines some of the factors affecting these beliefs.

The event will also mark the launch of the Job Quality Quiz (www.howgoodismyjob.com). 

The event is free, but places are limited and attendance will be by prior registration only.  If you would like to attend please e-mail alice@inanyevent.com by 5 July 2018.

If you require any further information, please contact Alice Johnson-Jelf at the SES2017 Conference Desk on Tel: 01275 266000.

Three more themes – effort, participation and insecurity – will be covered at a second launch to be held on 3 October 2018 at Canada Water Culture Space, 21 Surrey Quays Rd, London SE16 7AR.

11th June 2018

BUIRA Conference 2018 - Timetable now available

The conference timetable is now availablehttps://www.buira.org/assets/images/conferences/2016/Conference-schedule%20(002).pdf

Please also select your meal choices for the Conference Gala Dinnerhttps://www.eventbrite.com/e/buira-conference-gala-dinner-tickets-46762782742

8th June 2018

Event: Work and Equalities Fourth Fairness at Work Conference 10 – 11 September 2018

Building on the three previous Fairness at Work Conferences at the University of Manchester (in 2012, 2014, and 2016), the 2018 conference aims to bring together academics and practitioners to discuss strategic issues on the subject of justice and fairness at work.

The last two years have seen a major shift in the political environment and an emergence of a politics of national insularity. Yet at the same time major strides have been made in raising awareness and support for living wage campaigns and improving workplace justice. The conference aims to discuss developments in our understandings of the impact of technological changes (e.g. the gig economy), the changing experiences of work amongst groups of vulnerable workers (e.g. younger workers), the impact of an increasingly hostile context on notions of justice and fairness at the workplace (e.g. a greater challenge to minority rights) and the responses and roles of trade unions and other civil society organisations in dealing with such challenges.

Plenary speakers include:
Professor Ralph Darlington, University of Salford
Dr Jo Grady, University of Sheffield
Professor Debra Howcroft, Work and Equalities Institute
Professor Andrew Pendleton, University of Durham
Professor Melanie Simms, University of Glasgow
Professor Vicki Waas, University of Cardiff
Dr Alex Wood, Oxford University

The conference is being held in Manchester at the same time as the 150^th Annual Conference of the UK’s Trade Unions Congress and will organise sessions linked to the TUC conference themes, with invited speakers and activities focused on the future of trade unions and worker regulation and rights.  The TUC was founded in Manchester in 1868 and the WEI Fairness at Work conference will include social and cultural activities linked to the labour history and struggles for equality of the city.

Delegates will also be able to attend the Fairness at Work/Work & Equalities Institute fringe event, "Work and Equalities: Futures and Challenges", on Tueday 11th September as part of the TUC's 150th anniversary conference also held in Manchester during that week.

Venue: The University of Manchester - Cost: £200 Waged, £100 Day rate (£50 unwaged): includes all food and drink plus the conference dinner

Register to attend the conference

Further details  available here: http://mbs.ac.uk/weifairworkconference

7th June 2018

Event: University of Greenwich, Faculty of Business PSIRU/WERU conference

University of Greenwich, Faculty of Business PSIRU/WERU conference  

FUTURE PUBLIC SERVICES

To be held on Wednesday 27^th June 2018 in Lecture theatre QA 280, Queen Anne Building, Business Faculty, University of Greenwich, Park Row, London SE10 9LS.

The proposals in the Labour Party’s 2017 manifesto for public ownership of water, energy and rail proved extremely popular in the general election. Since then there has been a resurgence of debate in the UK around the question of public ownership for the first time in a quarter of a century, involving politicians, investors, academics, unions, and the public, with substantial media coverage.  

The University of Greenwich is organising a conference on 27th June 2018 to contribute to and enhance this debate. The morning session will focus on the case for public ownership in the UK, and on the transition to public ownership, of railway, water, and energy services, and PFI schemes in the NHS, local and central government. This will be followed by contributions on the political economy of public services and public economics, including international speakers.

The afternoon session will examine how public services can be more democratic focusing on the role of public service workers, and how quality of public services can be improved when workers contribute to the design and delivery of the services.  Presentations from academics and international trade unionists will discuss this relationship between workers and public services in relation to health and education, local government, public transport, and waste management.  

9.00-13.00: Why public ownership?

Labour party speaker: public ownership plans

Ian Taylor (Transport for Quality of Life): Public ownership of railways

Dr. Helen Mercer (University of Greenwich): Nationalising SPVs and PFI 

Prof. David Hall (University of Greenwich): Public ownership of water and energy

Prof. Judith Clifton (University of Cantabria): Public enterprise and the future 

Dr. Emanuele Lobina (University of Greenwich): Theorising efficiency and the public sector 

Dr. June Sekera (University College London and Tufts University): Re-thinking public economics

Discussion

Lunch 13.00-14.15

14.15- 17.00: Democratising public services  

Chair: Prof Sian Moore, University of Greenwich

Dr. Jane Lethbridge (PSIRU): Worker-led management of services – towards democratic professionalism in public services

Asbjorn Wahl (Campaign for the Welfare State and NUMGE, Norway): Workers in the welfare state

Public transport:  Alana Dave (ITF): Redesigning and restructuring services

Waste management: Vera Weghmann (PSIRU): Redesigning and restructuring services

Discussion

17.00 Close

For registration, please contact  businessevents@greenwich.ac.uk

For more information please contact: Dr. Jane Lethbridge, Director, PSIRU  j.lethbridge@gre.ac.uk

7th June 2018

Event: Contemporary British Trotskyism: a symposium

Contemporary British Trotskyism: a symposium

Thursday 28 June

2pm - 4.30pm

Venue: Queen Mary University of London, Arts 1 building, Room 1.28

A symposium on British Trotskyism jointly organised by the PSA Labour Movements and Communism Specialist groups for John Kelly’s new book Contemporary Trotskyism: Parties, Sects and Social Movements in Britain (Routledge, 2018)

Speakers

John Kelly (Birkbeck)

Ian Birchall

Phil Burton-Cartledge (Derby)

Madeleine Davis  (Queen Mary)

Kevin Morgan (Manchester)

Mark Wickham-Jones (Bristol)

In a major new study of British Trotskyism, John Kelly looks in detail at the influence, resilience and weaknesses of the British Trotskyist movement, from the 1970s to the present day. This afternoon seminar brings together experts in the history and politics of the labour movement, Communism, New Left and far left to debate the arguments of the book and reflect on the significance of the Trotskyist movement for contemporary British politics. 

FREE: all welcome

Register: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/contemporary-british-trotskyism-a-symposium-tickets-46762541019

5th June 2018

Event: Time’s Up: Proposed Solutions for Equality and Diversity Challenges in 2017

The Diversity Interest Group at the University of Greenwich is showcasing its research on Equality and Diversity in a one day conference.

Date: Monday, 11 of June 2018

 Time: 9:30

Location: Queen Anne Building, Room 063, Park Row, London SE10 9LS

Key note speech from Professor Tracey Reynolds: "Mind(ful) of the gap: intersectionality and the challenges of diversity in higher education"

Plus conference presentations from researchers at the University of Greenwich on the themes of:

• Education
• Careers and Employment
• Justice

Including a practitioner focus from Sarah Crowe

Vice President | Senior Consultant- Diversity and Inclusion– EMEA, Northern Trust.

Followed by a roundtable including Professor Sian Moore and Dr Jason Arday.

To register, please email Business Events with your name and job title to attend.

Professor Tracey Reynolds: Tracey's teaching and research interests focus on transnational families and kinship networks; constructions of motherhood and parenting & youth studies, and she has established international recognition within these fields of expertise. She has conducted extensive empirical research in the UK across a range of social issues including black and minority families living in disadvantaged communities, the study of families and in the Caribbean and North America.

Professor Sian Moore: Director of the Work and Employment Research Unit, University of Greenwich. Sian joined the University of Greenwich as Professor in Employment Relations and Human Resource Management and Director of the Work and Employment Research Unit (WERU) in September 2015. She was previously Professor of Work and Employment Relations and Co-Director of the Centre for Employment Studies Research (CESR) at the University of the West of England.

Dr Jason Arday: a Senior Lecturer in Education at Roehampton University, School of Education, a Visiting Research Fellow at The Ohio State University in the Office of Diversity and Inclusion and a Trustee of the Runnymede Trust and Co-Chair of the Runnymede Academic Forum.He has recently completed an edited collection with Professor Heidi Mirza (Goldsmiths, University of London) entitled Dismantling Race in Higher Education: Racism, Whiteness and Decolonising the Academy (Palgrave).

4th June 2018

Event: BUIRA History of Industrial Relations Study Group

Deindustrialisation and Industrial Relations in Scotland: 1960s until Today

Thursday 7 June 2018: 15.30-17.00 (Tea/ coffee from 15.00; drinks at 5pm)

Room C279, University of Westminster Business School, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS (opposite Madame Tussauds and nearly opposite Baker Street tube)

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).

Programme:

3.00-3.20pm: Tea/ coffee/ refreshments

3.20pm: Welcome and introductions: Michael Gold and Linda Clarke (Chairs)

3.30-4.00pm: Jim Phillips, Jim Tomlinson and Valerie Wright (presented by Jim Phillips)

Deindustrialisation, Ownership and Industrial Relations, c. 1963-1993: Evidence from Linwood Car Manufacturing and Timex Dundee

Deindustrialisation was a phased and managed process, which structured industrial relations. From the mid-1950s industrial workers and communities in Scotland were persuaded to trade ‘old’ jobs in the staples for ‘new’ jobs in lighter engineering. ‘New’ employers acquired obligations, partly because public money was involved in establishing business premises and associated housing. The cases of Linwood car manufacturing and Timex Dundee show that workers exerted moral economy claims to ownership of these new jobs and factories. Through trade union organisation, embedded in community and familial ties, they challenged managerial sovereignty, particularly at points of transition or crisis.

4.00-4.30pm: Dr Jenny O’Neil and Dr Vaughan Ellis

Unheard Voices of Decline: Scottish Oil Sector

This paper examines how employment in the Scottish oil industry is changing as the industry declines, shedding in excess of 120,000 jobs between 2014 and 2016 as oil prices fell. Yet, the absence of workers’ voice in policy discussions about how best to safeguard the industry and utilise their skills has meant that other stakeholders’ interests have been privileged. Drawing from in depth oral history interviews with off shore oil workers, it is argued that workers are experiencing lower wages, fewer shifts, difficulty accessing re-training and career changes as well as adverse effects on family life and wellbeing.

4.30-5.00pm: General discussion

5.00pm: Close (followed by drinks until 5.30pm)
 

The speakers:

Jim Phillips is a Senior Lecturer in Economic and Social History at the University of Glasgow, where he and his c-authors are working on a Leverhulme-funded project, Employment, Politics and Culture in Scotland since 1955. Jim co-edits Scottish Labour History and Historical Studies in Industrial Relations.

Dr Jenny O’Neil is a Lecturer in Labour Relations and Global HRM at Edinburgh Napier University. Her research interests include skills development within turbulent environments, employee voice and Global HRM.

Dr Vaughan Ellis is a Lecturer in Work and Industrial Relations specialising in the contemporary organisation and experience of work, and how changes in an organisations' external environment impact upon the labour process.

1st June 2018

Workshop: What Kind of Green and Just Transition? With Special Reference to the Built Environment

ProBE – Centre for the Study of the Production of the Built Environment

University of Westminster

WHAT KIND OF GREEN AND JUST TRANSITION?

WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT 

DATE:       Thursday 12 July 2018, 12 noon-18.00pm          

VENUE:    Room CG28, University of Westminster Marylebone Campus,

35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS (opposite Madame Tussaud and diagonal from Baker Street tube station)

There is much discussion as well as divergent approaches to the question of a just transition to a low carbon economy, revolving

around what is achievable by the market or by ecological modernisation and whether instead a much more radical transformation

is necessary. This workshop addresses this debate and is concerned in particular with the active role of workers and the trade unions

in this transition, including examples from the built environment of successful intervention.

11.30-12.00     REGISTRATION AND COFFEE

12.00-12.05     Welcome: Introduction:                      ProBE/University of Westminster

SESSION 1: WHAT IS A GREEN AND JUST TRANSITION?

12.05-12.25     Just Transition and Beyond Just Transition: Strategies, Tactics, Labour Leadership            Carla Lipsig Mummé            York University, Toronto

12.25–12.45    Enabling city networks for green transitions   Fred Steward  University of Westminster

12.45-13.05     Trade Union Approaches to Just Transition Strategy Sam Mason    Public and Commercial Services (PCS) Union

13.05-13.30     Discussion

13.30-14.15     LUNCH BREAK

SESSION 2:  CONSTRUCTING A LOW CARBON BUILT ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY PROVISION

14.15-14.35     From constructing carbon-intensive to low carbon energy supply    Colin Gleeson            ProBE/University of Westminster

14.35-14.55     Conflicting ways from Black to Green           Béla Galgóczi  European Trade Union Institute

14.55-15.15     Green jobs and sustainability in the European offshore wind turbine manufacturing industry            Lisa Schulte    Middlesex University

15.15-15.35     Discussion      

15.35-15.55     COFFEE BREAK

SESSION 3: GREEN TRANSITIONS, TRADE UNION ACTIONS AND LOCALITIES

15.55-16.15     Green Transitions in the built environment in Europe Linda Clarke and Melahat Sahin-Dikmen            ProBE/University of Westminster

16.15-16.35     Framing Just Transition          Dimitris Stevis Colorado State University

16.35-17.00     Discussion

PANEL SESSION:  WHERE DO TRADE UNIONS GO FROM HERE?

17.00-18.00     Mercedes Landolfi (Fillea CGIL, Italy); ITUC? tbc, Philip Pearson (GJA);

1800-18.30      Drinks

To reserve a place and for further information, contact, Melahat Sahin-Dikmen M.Sahindikmen@westminster.ac.uk or Linda Clarke: clarkel@westminster.ac.uk

1st June 2018

Event and discussion: History & Policy: Why is Equal Pay for women so difficult to achieve?

31st May 2018

Vacancy - Research Assistant (Institute for Research into Organisations, Work and Employment (IROWE))

Great job opportunity for new Research Assistant to come and join iROWE (Institute for Research into Organisations, Work and Employment), University of Central Lancashire.

iROWE covers diverse research topics from domestic violence to co-working to leadership in healthcare to conflict resolution.  We run events with internal and external stakeholders, and are very keen on engagement with the community – for instance our forthcoming conference on domestic violence in the workplace with the TUC, and speakers from practitioners, expert groups, policy and academia.

Research Assistant (Institute for Research into Organisations, Work and Employment (IROWE))

University of Central Lancashire – Lancashire School of Business and Enterprise.

REQ003665

Hours:  Full time (36.5 hours per week - 1.0 FTE).  Job Share and part time applications also considered.

Basis:  Fixed term contract for 12 months initially

Grade: E (£21585-24285)

Closing Date:  24/06/2018

Applications and all details please search vacancies:  https://www.uclan.ac.uk/work/index.php

 If anyone wants to talk to me about the role they are very welcome to do so Dr Gemma Wibberley,  gwibberley@uclan.ac.uk

30th May 2018

Call for Abstracts: BUIRA 2018 PhD Workshop

The British Universities Industrial Relation Association holds 2018 conference at Middlesex University, London (Hendon campus), Wednesday 27th – Friday 29th June, 2018.

The PhD session is planned to hold on first day of the conference, Wednesday 27th June. The session will have two main features (PhD Workshop paper presentations and panel discussions). Professor Michael Gold, Royal Holloway, University of London, and Dr Danat Valizade, University of Leeds, have been confirmed to be amongst the panel.

29th May 2018

Vacancy: Professor and Director, Centre for Global Business

Job: Professor and Director, Centre for Global Business (Research Only)

Our Centre comprises six research groups:

If you're after a rewarding career, Monash University can help make it happen. With leading academics and world-class resources, combined with a ranking in the top 100 universities worldwide, we offer all you need to build a brighter future.

We are seeking a strong and committed leader and researcher to fulfil the role of Professor and Director of the Centre for Global Business. The Director will maintain and enhance the Centre's profile as a leading national centre of research and provide strategic leadership to the existing team.

The Director is responsible for representing the Centre and its interests, views and needs across external, professional, business and government platforms. You will be responsible for maintaining a strong program of research, capable of attracting high calibre research staff and substantial external funding, publish research outcomes in the highest impact journals and foster postgraduate research training through the supervision of postgraduate students.

The successful applicant will be a researcher of international repute with a vision for the needs and development of global business studies both nationally and internationally. This vision will be supported by superior communication skills and a demonstrated commitment to the promotion of global business as a research area.

To thrive in this appealing role, you will have a relevant postgraduate qualification, an internationally-recognised career in a relevant discipline, a demonstrated record of academic excellence, and extensive experience and expertise in strategic management and leadership, particularly in a multidisciplinary environment.

Your application must address the selection criteria. Please refer to "How to apply for Monash Jobs".

Enquiries

Professor Gary Magee- Deputy Dean (Research), <Gary.Magee@monash.edu> 

or if you wish, for an informal discussion, contact Professor Greg Bamber <greg.bamber@monash.edu>

Position Description

 PD - Professor and Director, Centre for Global Business

Monday 9 July 2018, 11:55 pm AEST

24th May 2018

Event: WERU Seminar - Self-Employed Workers: Who Are They And Can They Be Organised?

THE UNIVERSITY OF GREENWICH WORK AND EMPLOYMENT RESEARCH UNIT 
 
SELF-EMPLOYED WORKERS: WHO ARE THEY AND CAN THEY BE ORGANISED? 
 
WEDNESDAY 30^th MAY 2018. 15.00 – 18.00 
 
VENUE: ROOM HH102, HAMILTON HOUSE, PARK VISTA, GREENWICH, SE10 9LZ 
 
Recently there has been a new focus on the role of self-employment in the labour market. In large part this is because of the substantial rise in self-employment since the financial crash of 2007/08 and the rise of 'bogus' self-employment in the new logistics industries (and elsewhere) which has challenged the legal concept of the 'employee' and workers' rights generally. This seminar seeks to shed new light on the different kinds of work undertaken by the self-employed - from window cleaners to accountants, and the wide range of incomes achieved. Our four presentations include recent research on the self-employed by the Institute for Employment Studies (IES); analysis by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) of the national statistics on the self-employed workforce; a speaker from BECTU on the union organisation of self-employed workers in the film and broadcasting industries; and Professor Patricia Leighton on research she has been conducting among self-employed professionals. Our speakers are as follows: 
 
Andrea Broughton (Ecorys) and Matthew Williams (IES) will present the findings of recent IES research on segmentation of the solo self-employed workforce. The research highlights the diverse nature of this workforce, identifying nine distinct segments, ranging from highly independent, secure and well-paid individuals to those with a low degree of control over their working life, working in low-paid and insecure jobs. The research is based on a literature review and analysis of three datasets: the Labour Force Survey, the Family Resources Survey and Understanding Society. Andrea Broughton joined Ecorys as an Associate Director in January 2018, prior to which she was Principal Research Fellow at the Institute for Employment Studies. Andrea has a degree in modern languages (French and German) and an MA in international industrial relations and human resource management. She has over 20 years of experience in conducting research into European comparative employment relations, working for clients such as the European Commission, the European Parliament and Eurofound, Dublin. Andrea’s research interests include social dialogue, management of change and restructuring, precarious work and atypical employment. Matthew Williams re-joined IES in May 2013, having started his career at the Institute in the 1990s. An economist by training, Matthew has considerable experience and expertise in labour market analysis, at a local, regional and national level and for employers and public bodies, and he is a strong quantitative researcher and skilled in using SPSS to analyse administrative and survey datasets. He also has experience in the work areas of disability and higher education research. Prior to re-joining IES Matthew worked for 12 years as a self-employed research consultant, often working in conjunction with IES, and worked on a wide range of qualitative and quantitative research projects.

Mark Chandler (ONS) will discuss the national data available on the self-employed workforce, looking at their characteristics, income and wealth.  Mark Chandler is a Senior Economic Adviser currently leading four teams of economists in the economics hub at the Office for National Statistics. His experience includes defining, measuring and developing measures of service output and productivity, providing the economics component to the annual local government finance settlements and the business rates retention scheme, monitoring and evaluation of local Growth Deals and Devolution Deals, and developing the WebTAG system of economic appraisal for transport investments. Prior to becoming a civil servant, he was an academic teaching and leading research projects in the Baltic States. His Ph.D. in economics, on a public choice model of local government finance, is from the University of Connecticut.
 
Paul Evans (BECTU) will cover the union organisation of the self-employed in the film and broadcasting industries and show how a collective agreement was negotiated for these workers. Paul is an Assistant National Secretary of BECTU, the sector of the Prospect trade union that covers the entertainment industry. He oversees a rapidly growing 11,000-strong division of the union representing London TV, feature film and commercials production and post-production crew – mostly freelancers. He has a previous background as the founder of a Worker Co-op in the tech sector, a period of work in publishing and as a European Parliament researcher. In his spare time, he is the whistle player in a Pogues tribute band and is the author of a book titled ‘Save Democracy – Abolish Voting’, published by The Democratic Society in November 2017.

Professor Patricia Leighton (IPag Business School, France and University of South Wales UK) argues for a more radical, comprehensive and robust re-assessment of the employment law framework applying to workers generally, but the self-employed in particular. While Patricia’s background is as an employment lawyer, she will draw on a lot of empirical data on the experience of self-employed people and the legal and other responses to them in her presentation. She sees employment rights (and, indeed, other rights, e.g. to compete, work as a professional etc, work across borders etc) as important but by no means the only area for exploration and there is a need to set employment rights alongside social protections and a range of other issues. Patricia Leighton is Professor Emeritus at the University of South Wales UK and was previously Jean Monnet Professor of European Law  and a Professor at the College of Europe, Bruges. 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 written several books on employment contracts and their management, flexible and emerging work patterns, and on opportunity and wellbeing at work. She has undertaken many research projects for international and national governments and other organisations, including the ILO, the European Commission and UK government departments, for private sector organisations and professional bodies.

This is a free seminar open to the public and all are invited but please can you inform us if you are planning to attend from outside the University of Greenwich by registering your interest at:   Business School Events with your name, job title and organisation to attend. Or email Professor Geoff White on wg08@gre.ac.uk

 
HOW TO FIND US

Hamilton House, 15 Park Vista, Greenwich, London SE10 9LZ 
Telephone: +44 20 8331 9083 E-mail: i3centre@gre.ac.uk​

23rd May 2018

Journal of Industrial Relations - Call for special issue proposals

The Journal of Industrial Relations (JIR) is inviting proposals for special issues for the years 2020 and 2021.

The Journal of Industrial Relations is an ISI-ranked, peer-reviewed international journal administered by the Australian Labour and Employment Relations Association (ALERA). The editors invite scholarship from a range of disciplinary perspectives, examining any aspect of employment relations. Contributions exploring the traditional concerns of industrial relations as well as studies addressing the intersection of workplace, family and community are welcome.

The guidelines for special issue proposals, editorial guidelines and the JIR's aims and scope can be found at http://journals.sagepub.com/pb-assets/cmscontent/JIR/JIR_Call%20for%20SI%20proposals__2020-2021.pdf.

Please submit your special issue proposal to the JIR Editors at business.jir@sydney.edu.au by June 2018

23rd May 2018

Book Publication: Kettling the Unions: A Guide to the 2016 Trade Union Act

Kettling the Unions?

A Guide to the 2016 Trade Union Act

 By Alan Tuckman

Foreword by Mark Serwotka, PCS General Secretary

 Published with the support of the Public and Commercial Services Union

ORDER NOW FROM SPOKESMAN BOOKS:

£14.99 + £1P&P

http://spokesmanbookshop.com/Kettling-the-Unions

From Mark Serwotka’s foreword:

‘This very welcome book is intended to provide an analysis of the roots of the Trade Union Act 2016. Those roots lie in Thatcher’s legislation of the 1980s and further back to the undermining of collective bargaining in UK industrial relations that developed in the 1970s, in the context of neoliberalism’s rise to dominance. 

The Trade Union Act was a transparent attempt to contain trade unions in the position they held before the turn of the 20th century. It has introduced draconian restrictions on the right to strike, and new restrictions covering balloting and picketing. It has also changed the rules on union political funds from the current ‘opt-out’ system to an ‘opt-in’ system, an anti-democratic attempt to reduce the ability of trade unions to fund not only political parties, but also a wide range of other non-party political activities. 

As well as aiming to be a guide to the 2016 Trade Union Act and its effect on the trade union movement, this book sets it in the context of decades of attacks on the rights of workers to organise by Conservative governments.’

Contents:

Foreword by Mark Serwotka 7

Preface Oil on the Fire? Brexit and Workers’ Rights 9

Introduction 16

 Chapter 1 - The Trade Union Problem 28

The Emerging Problem 28 | The Rise of Trade Unionism 31 | Regularising Trade Unions? 36 | Taff Vale and the Trade Disputes Act 1906 39 | Voluntarism 44 | The Enemy Within: the challenge to consensus 47 | The Establishment of Trade Unionism and its Growing Challenge 53

Chapter 2 - Containing the Unions 58

The Attack on Voluntarism 58 | Heath, the ‘Quiet Revolution’ and the Industrial Relations Act 60 | Labour and the Social Contract 64 | Trade Unions Under Thatcher and Major 71 | Fairness at Work? The Labour Government 1997-2010 78 | The Coalition, the State of the Unions, and the Carr Review 83

Chapter 3 - The Trade Union Act 2016: A Guide 102

Introduction 102

2. Industrial Action Ballots 107

Ballot Thresholds 107 | Electronic Balloting 113 | Information Requirements associated with industrial action ballots 117 | Timing of and Duration of industrial ballots 119 | Expiry of industrial action mandate 121 | Picketing 122 | Use of agency workers during strikes 127

3. Political Funds 129

The Nature of Trade Union Political Funds 129 | Reform of Political Funds 131

4. Facilities Time and Check-Off 134 Facilities Time 134 | Check-Off 138
5. The Role of the Certification Officer 141

 Chapter 4 - Flexing the Kettle? 153

A ‘Winter of Discontent’? 153 | Implementing the Act 155 | Testing the Trade Union Act 158 | Immediate Impact of the Act 161 | Pension Disputes in the Universities and Royal Mail 164 | Pensions and the Pay Cap 173 | Conflict in the ‘new economy’?: Organising the unorganised 175 | Recognition in the global economy 179 | A revival of trade unionism? 181 | Repealing the Trade Union Act 187

Appendices 196

Appendix 1 - Examples of workers who deliver ‘important public services’ under the 40% threshold 196 Appendix 2 - Facilities Time 198 Appendix 3 - Role of Certification Officer 200 Appendix 4 - Institute of Employment Rights, Manifesto for Labour Law 201

Acknowledgements 204

About the Author 204

-----

Press review copies: PDF copies of the book can be sent to papers, magazines and journals in advance of publication upon request and consideration.

22nd May 2018

Event: Work & Equalities Annual Lecture

The 2018 WEI Annual Lecture, in partnership with the Health Services Research Centre (HSRC) will take place on Thursday 24^th May from 3pm – 5pm.

The topic is:

New Forms of Governance: Striving for Better Jobs and Public Services.

Can new forms of governance help in the search for better jobs and public services: evidence from developments in health care and community services in the United States.

Hallsworth Professors Rose Batt and Ron Applegate of Cornell University will present.

Further details are given in the flyer attached, and you can register here.

18th May 2018

Invitation to apply: Advert for BUIRA Executive Committee Members

The BUIRA Executive Committee will have 2 vacancies as from July 2018.

As discussed and 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 BUIRA admin who isJess Douglas at admin@buira.org.

All members are welcome to apply regardless of career stage i.e. early, senior, or type of contract.

However, this year we would like to strongly encourage women to apply for these positions as they are under-represented on the Committee.

Of course this does not remove open competition and the selection process is still via the membership at the AGM, not the Stewardship or the Executive Committee.

Please include a short biography of no more than 300 words and your reasons for applying for the vacant position.

Executive Committee members are expected to

• attend Committee meetings (3 a year)
• attend the annual conference
•  chair sessions at the conference
• review conference abstracts
• engage in e-mail discussions as appropriate

11th May 2018

Times Up In Academia

We are keen to hear from members interested in joining a working group concerning the ‘times up in academia’ movement.  If you might be willing get involved, or simply want to share experiences, ideas and thoughts on what BUIRA could do to support this important issue,  please let us know ASAP at admin@buira.org

10th May 2018

Call for expressions of interest in hosting BUIRA 2020 Conference

We are currently inviting expressions of interest in hosting the 2020 BUIRA conference.  If you might be interested in hosting the conference at your institution in summer 2020 please do let us know by at admin@buira.org

10th May 2018

Call for Streams, Abstracts and Papers - Global Work Quality Work? AIRAANZ Conference, 12-14 February 2019, RMIT University, Melbourne

Association of Industrial Relations Academics of Australia and New Zealand (AIRAANZ) Conference
Global Work, Quality Work?
12-14 February 2019, Melbourne, Australia

CALL FOR STREAMS, ABSTRACTS AND PAPERS

The Association of Industrial Relations Academics of Australia and New Zealand (AIRAANZ) is pleased to invite industrial relations scholars worldwide to present their research at the next annual conference to be held in Melbourne, hosted by the School of Management at RMIT University. The conference theme ‘Global Work, Quality Work?’ invites us to consider the dilemmas arising from growing disparities in the quality of jobs and from fragmentation of employment, especially in the context of the rapidly changing landscape of global capitalism, labour regulation, labour migration and labour movements.

The contributions of industrial relations scholarship and practice to understanding and responding to the challenges of growing inequalities in employment, pressures on job quality and poor labour market outcomes for diverse groups of workers will set the direction for the conference. Papers that engage with innovative responses to the challenges and issues of regulation, labour organisation and labour movements are of particular interest. Along with contributions that address the conference themes, abstracts and papers addressing a wide range of issues drawing on industrial relations, human resources, sociology of work and labour rights are invited.

Stream Proposals: Stream proposals should provide a brief (one page maximum) outline of the stream and include stream title, organiser/s’ names and email addresses. Organisers of accepted streams are expected to encourage participants and assist with organising refereeing of papers. Stream proposals should be emailed to airaanz@con-sol.com by 18 May 2018.

Abstracts: Abstracts of 250 words should succinctly set out the research question, methods used, theoretical focus and major conclusions. For full details go to: www.airaanz2019.org.au.

Papers: Refereed and non-refereed papers should be between 3,000 and 5,000 words. Submission details can be found at www.airaanz2019.org.au.

KEY DATES AND DEADLINES:
Stream proposals due: 18 May 2018
Abstract & paper submissions open: 4 June 2018
Paper submissions close: 31 August 2018
Abstract submissions close: 28 September 2018
Acceptance notification: 5 November 2018
Early bird registrations close: 8 December 2018

Contacts: Fiona Macdonald fiona.macdonald@rmit.edu.au; Diane Holland diane.holland@rmit.edu.au
Conference Solutions (Mandy Winter and Greg Vickers) airaanz@con-sol.com .

For full details see the AIRAANZ Website

9th May 2018

Event: WERU Seminar on the Self-EmployedWorkforce

THE UNIVERSITY OF GREENWICH WORK AND EMPLOYMENT RESEARCH UNIT 
 
SELF-EMPLOYED WORKERS: WHO ARE THEY AND CAN THEY BE ORGANISED? 
 
WEDNESDAY 30^th MAY 2018. 13.00 – 18.00 
 
VENUE: ROOM HH102, HAMILTON HOUSE, PARK VISTA, GREENWICH, SE10 9LZ

 
Recently there has been a new focus on the role of self-employment in the labour market. In large part this is because of the substantial rise in self-employment since the financial crash of 2007/08 and the rise of 'bogus' self-employment in the new logistics industries (and elsewhere) which has challenged the legal concept of the 'employee' and workers' rights generally. This seminar seeks to shed new light on the different kinds of work undertaken by the self-employed - from window cleaners to accountants, and the wide range of incomes achieved. Our four presentations include recent research on the self-employed by the Institute for Employment Studies (IES); analysis by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) of the national statistics on the self-employed workforce; a speaker from BECTU on the union organisation of self-employed workers in the film and broadcasting industries; and Professor Patricia Leighton on research she has been conducting among self-employed professionals. Our speakers are as follows: 
 
Andrea Broughton (Ecorys) and Matthew Williams (IES) will present the findings of recent IES research on segmentation of the solo self-employed workforce. The research highlights the diverse nature of this workforce, identifying nine distinct segments, ranging from highly independent, secure and well-paid individuals to those with a low degree of control over their working life, working in low-paid and insecure jobs. The research is based on a literature review and analysis of three datasets: the Labour Force Survey, the Family Resources Survey and Understanding Society. Andrea Broughtonjoined Ecorys as an Associate Director in January 2018, prior to which she was Principal Research Fellow at the Institute for Employment Studies. Andrea has a degree in modern languages (French and German) and an MA in international industrial relations and human resource management. She has over 20 years of experience in conducting research into European comparative employment relations, working for clients such as the European Commission, the European Parliament and Eurofound, Dublin. Andrea’s research interests include social dialogue, management of change and restructuring, precarious work and atypical employment. Matthew Williams re-joined IES in May 2013, having started his career at the Institute in the 1990s. An economist by training, Matthew has considerable experience and expertise in labour market analysis, at a local, regional and national level and for employers and public bodies, and he is a strong quantitative researcher and skilled in using SPSS to analyse administrative and survey datasets. He also has experience in the work areas of disability and higher education research. Prior to re-joining IES Matthew worked for 12 years as a self-employed research consultant, often working in conjunction with IES, and worked on a wide range of qualitative and quantitative research projects.

Mark Chandler (ONS) will discuss the national data available on the self-employed workforce, looking at their characteristics, income and wealth.  Mark Chandler is a Senior Economic Adviser currently leading four teams of economists in the economics hub at the Office for National Statistics. His experience includes defining, measuring and developing measures of service output and productivity, providing the economics component to the annual local government finance settlements and the business rates retention scheme, monitoring and evaluation of local Growth Deals and Devolution Deals, and developing the WebTAG system of economic appraisal for transport investments. Prior to becoming a civil servant, he was an academic teaching and leading research projects in the Baltic States. His Ph.D. in economics, on a public choice model of local government finance, is from the University of Connecticut.
 
Paul Evans (BECTU) will cover the union organisation of the self-employed in the film and broadcasting industries and show how a collective agreement was negotiated for these workers. Paul is an Assistant National Secretary of BECTU, the sector of the Prospect trade union that covers the entertainment industry. He oversees a rapidly growing 11,000-strong division of the union representing London TV, feature film and commercials production and post-production crew – mostly freelancers. He has a previous background as the founder of a Worker Co-op in the tech sector, a period of work in publishing and as a European Parliament researcher. In his spare time, he is the whistle player in a Pogues tribute band and is the author of a book titled ‘Save Democracy – Abolish Voting’, published by The Democratic Society in November 2017.

Professor Patricia Leighton (IPag Business School, France and University of South Wales UK) argues for a more radical, comprehensive and robust re-assessment of the employment law framework applying to workers generally, but the self-employed in particular. While Patricia’s background is as an employment lawyer, she will draw on a lot of empirical data on the experience of self-employed people and the legal and other responses to them in her presentation. She sees employment rights (and, indeed, other rights, e.g. to compete, work as a professional etc, work across borders etc) as important but by no means the only area for exploration and there is a need to set employment rights alongside social protections and a range of other issues. Patricia Leighton is Professor Emeritus at the University of South Wales UK and was previously Jean Monnet Professor of European Law  and a Professor at the College of Europe, Bruges. 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 written several books on employment contracts and their management, flexible and emerging work patterns, and on opportunity and wellbeing at work. She has undertaken many research projects for international and national governments and other organisations, including the ILO, the European Commission and UK government departments, for private sector organisations and professional bodies.

This is a free seminar open to the public and all are invited but please can you inform us if you are planning to attend from outside the University of Greenwich by registering your interest at:   Business School Events with your name, job title and organisation to attend. Or email Professor Geoff White on wg08@gre.ac.uk

 
HOW TO FIND US

Hamilton House, 15 Park Vista, Greenwich, London SE10 9LZ 
Telephone: +44 20 8331 9083 E-mail: i3centre@gre.ac.uk

9th May 2018

Event: WERU Seminar on the Self-EmployedWorkforce

THE UNIVERSITY OF GREENWICH WORK AND EMPLOYMENT RESEARCH UNIT 
 
SELF-EMPLOYED WORKERS: WHO ARE THEY AND CAN THEY BE ORGANISED? 
 
WEDNESDAY 30^th MAY 2018. 13.00 – 18.00 
 
VENUE: ROOM HH102, HAMILTON HOUSE, PARK VISTA, GREENWICH, SE10 9LZ

Recently there has been a new focus on the role of self-employment in the labour market. In large part this is because of the substantial rise in self-employment since the financial crash of 2007/08 and the rise of 'bogus' self-employment in the new logistics industries (and elsewhere) which has challenged the legal concept of the 'employee' and workers' rights generally. This seminar seeks to shed new light on the different kinds of work undertaken by the self-employed - from window cleaners to accountants, and the wide range of incomes achieved. Our four presentations include recent research on the self-employed by the Institute for Employment Studies (IES); analysis by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) of the national statistics on the self-employed workforce; a speaker from BECTU on the union organisation of self-employed workers in the film and broadcasting industries; and Professor Patricia Leighton on research she has been conducting among self-employed professionals. Our speakers are as follows: 
 
Andrea Broughton (Ecorys) and Matthew Williams (IES) will present the findings of recent IES research on segmentation of the solo self-employed workforce. The research highlights the diverse nature of this workforce, identifying nine distinct segments, ranging from highly independent, secure and well-paid individuals to those with a low degree of control over their working life, working in low-paid and insecure jobs. The research is based on a literature review and analysis of three datasets: the Labour Force Survey, the Family Resources Survey and Understanding Society. Andrea Broughtonjoined Ecorys as an Associate Director in January 2018, prior to which she was Principal Research Fellow at the Institute for Employment Studies. Andrea has a degree in modern languages (French and German) and an MA in international industrial relations and human resource management. She has over 20 years of experience in conducting research into European comparative employment relations, working for clients such as the European Commission, the European Parliament and Eurofound, Dublin. Andrea’s research interests include social dialogue, management of change and restructuring, precarious work and atypical employment. Matthew Williams re-joined IES in May 2013, having started his career at the Institute in the 1990s. An economist by training, Matthew has considerable experience and expertise in labour market analysis, at a local, regional and national level and for employers and public bodies, and he is a strong quantitative researcher and skilled in using SPSS to analyse administrative and survey datasets. He also has experience in the work areas of disability and higher education research. Prior to re-joining IES Matthew worked for 12 years as a self-employed research consultant, often working in conjunction with IES, and worked on a wide range of qualitative and quantitative research projects.

Mark Chandler (ONS) will discuss the national data available on the self-employed workforce, looking at their characteristics, income and wealth.  Mark Chandler is a Senior Economic Adviser currently leading four teams of economists in the economics hub at the Office for National Statistics. His experience includes defining, measuring and developing measures of service output and productivity, providing the economics component to the annual local government finance settlements and the business rates retention scheme, monitoring and evaluation of local Growth Deals and Devolution Deals, and developing the WebTAG system of economic appraisal for transport investments. Prior to becoming a civil servant, he was an academic teaching and leading research projects in the Baltic States. His Ph.D. in economics, on a public choice model of local government finance, is from the University of Connecticut.
 
Paul Evans (BECTU) will cover the union organisation of the self-employed in the film and broadcasting industries and show how a collective agreement was negotiated for these workers. Paul is an Assistant National Secretary of BECTU, the sector of the Prospect trade union that covers the entertainment industry. He oversees a rapidly growing 11,000-strong division of the union representing London TV, feature film and commercials production and post-production crew – mostly freelancers. He has a previous background as the founder of a Worker Co-op in the tech sector, a period of work in publishing and as a European Parliament researcher. In his spare time, he is the whistle player in a Pogues tribute band and is the author of a book titled ‘Save Democracy – Abolish Voting’, published by The Democratic Society in November 2017.

Professor Patricia Leighton (IPag Business School, France and University of South Wales UK) argues for a more radical, comprehensive and robust re-assessment of the employment law framework applying to workers generally, but the self-employed in particular. While Patricia’s background is as an employment lawyer, she will draw on a lot of empirical data on the experience of self-employed people and the legal and other responses to them in her presentation. She sees employment rights (and, indeed, other rights, e.g. to compete, work as a professional etc, work across borders etc) as important but by no means the only area for exploration and there is a need to set employment rights alongside social protections and a range of other issues. Patricia Leighton is Professor Emeritus at the University of South Wales UK and was previously Jean Monnet Professor of European Law  and a Professor at the College of Europe, Bruges. 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 written several books on employment contracts and their management, flexible and emerging work patterns, and on opportunity and wellbeing at work. She has undertaken many research projects for international and national governments and other organisations, including the ILO, the European Commission and UK government departments, for private sector organisations and professional bodies.

This is a free seminar open to the public and all are invited but please can you inform us if you are planning to attend from outside the University of Greenwich by registering your interest at:   Business School Events with your name, job title and organisation to attend. Or email Professor Geoff White on wg08@gre.ac.uk

 
HOW TO FIND US

Hamilton House, 15 Park Vista, Greenwich, London SE10 9LZ 
Telephone: +44 20 8331 9083 E-mail: i3centre@gre.ac.uk

9th May 2018

Policy report and debate “On AI and Robotics”

Excerpt:
This publication is designed to help employers, regulators and policymakers understand the potential nature of these effects by reviewing a variety of application areas in which AI and robots are deployed, both individually and together. The more that is known about how different fields or industries might be disrupted, the better prepared institutions, companies and systems will be.

A number of researchers and associates of The University of Manchester have contributed, across a range of different specialisms, coordinated by Policy@Manchester. These insights cover advice in four key areas; hazardous environments, healthcare, research, and industry(covering employment and future technical progress).

Full Policy report and debate “On AI and Robotics” (Industry, Work, Employment ...).   Available at:

9th May 2018

Event: Making use of Oral History - Update to Schedule

Making use of Oral Labour History

Britain at Work (B@W) 1945-95 in association with British Universities’ Industrial Relations (BUIRA) IR History Group and Oral History Society (OHS)

Saturday 2 June 2018, 11am – 5.00pm

University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS

(opposite Madame Tussauds and nearly opposite Baker Street tube)

Room C279 (lunch C287)

For further details and to reserve a place please email Michael Gold (m.gold@rhul.ac.uk) or Linda Clarke (clarkel@wmin.ac.uk)

This year’s Britain at Work Oral Labour History Day will focus on what we do with the recordings we make, both audio and video. How do we share what we learn from interviews and how do we make sure that oral histories we collect are preserved for future use in safe environments and archives? The day will begin with an opening address byRobert Perks, Lead Curator, Oral History and the Director of National Life Stories at the British Library. Rob is also secretary of the Oral History Society and an editor of the journal Oral History. He will talk about developments and opportunities for the dissemination and sustainability of oral history collections.

Rob will be followed by roundtable reports from participants currently involved in oral history in work settings. After lunch, there will be presentations, beginning with Martin Astell, Sound and Video Archivist at Essex Record Office, who will talk about being an archivist working in a local authority museum/archive and the challenges besetting local archives and archivists. This is followed by presentations on the diverse results of oral history projects: books, films, a pop-up museum and a comic.

B@W is an initiative to capture the memories of people at work between 1945 and 1995, some of which are to found at the TUC Library Collections held at London Metropolitan University (www.unionhistory.info/britainatwork)..

DRAFT PROGRAMME

10.30-11.00 Registration

11.00-11.15 Welcome and introduction: Michael Gold and Linda Clarke

11.15-12.00 Keynote: How can I future-proof my oral history project? Guidance on best archival and legal practice for preservation and public access and reuse’. Rob Perks, Lead Curator, Oral History & Director of National Life Stories at the British Library. Chair: Joanna Bornat

12.00-13.00 Roundtable: brief contributions from participants on their current interest in oral labour history. Chair: Michael Gold

13.00-14.00 Lunch: 

14.00-15.30. Diverse uses of oral history. Chair: John Gabriel

·         Local collections: Martin Astell onOral history collections at the county record office - and how to set them free, Senior Archivist (Sound and Video), Essex Record Office

·         Film: Alex Gordon/ Chris Reeves (RMT History Project)

·         Book: Sally Groves (author of Trico: a victory to remember)

15.30-15.50 Break

15.50-16.40 More diverse uses: Chair: Linda Clarke

·         Educational website and book: Sundari Anitha / Ruth Pearson (Striking Women)

·         Pop-up Museum: Padmini Broomfield and Emma Golby-Kirk (Ford Transition, Southampton)

16.40-17.00 Discussion + chair’s closing observations: Michael Gold

9th May 2018

Call for Abstracts - BUIRA 2018 PhD workshop

The British Universities Industrial Relation Association holds 2018 conference at Middlesex University, London (Hendon campus), Wednesday 27th – Friday 29th June, 2018.

The PhD session is currently planned to be held on first day of the conference, Wednesday 27th June. The session will have two main features: PhD Workshop paper presentations and panel discussions.

Invitation is hereby extended to doctoral students, who are researching in the field of Industrial/Employment Relations, to submit abstracts for workshop paper presentations.

Abstracts could be on any research ideas, from a work in progress paper (WIP), or from a section of ongoing PhD work- the idea of this is to offer a platform away from main BUIRA conference paper sessions, where we could 'test the waters', and have feedback from peers and from a panel of established academics.

This call for abstracts opens from Tuesday 8th May to Friday 8th June. Please send abstract of 250 words to: buiraphd@outlook.com.

7th May 2018

Call for contributions: Gender Issues in Business Schools Network

4th May 2018

Specially Extended Plenary Session: BUIRA Conference 2018 (Update to Speakers)

Specially Extended Plenary Session:

BUIRA Conference

The 2018 UCU Pensions Dispute:

Assessment and Implications

Wednesday 27 June 1.15pm-3.15pm

Middlesex University, London (Hendon campus)

Speakers: John Kelly (Birkbeck), Phil Taylor (Strathclyde),

Jo Grady (Sheffield), Rachel Cohen (City) and Sean Wallis (UCL)

BUIRA members will undoubtedly agree that the 2018 British Universities pensions’ dispute has been a watershed moment for both industrial relations and trade unionism within higher education. Ironically, given the predominant discourse that suggests strike activity and trade unionism has become increasingly irrelevant in today’s changed world of work, the USS dispute had some of the elements of the industrial battles of the 1970s, albeit there were also new innovative forms of organisation and activity, the combination of which produced unprecedented transformative developments that have been ‘grist for the mill’ for BUIRA members.

            Significantly, UCU’s central strategy of strike mobilisation (in line with its recent Commission on Effective Industrial Action) broke with the limited one or two-day national strikes of the past (over pay, and pensions) with its call for sustained (virtually continuous) 14-days of strike action. If the busting of the Tories’ 2016 Trade Union Act balloting thresholds (both in terms of participation levels and percentage voting in favour of strike action) surprised many, the way in which the protracted nature of the action was then enthusiastically embraced by the mass of the union’s eligible membership also staked completely new ground with wide-ranging implications.

            In forcing the employers to rethink and climb down (in some respects at least) - as vice chancellors in a number of institutions broke ranks with UUK - it demonstrated in graphic relief the enduring power of effective collective strike action. It also provided time for strikers to organise, gain confidence and build links among themselves within their respective institutions and across universities. If in the past picket lines had been small and routine affairs, they now developed over the course of four weeks into relatively much larger and more vibrant pickets of defiance. The sustained nature of the action provided the basis for regular (often daily) mass meetings, the formation of strike committees, organisation of ‘Teach-Ins’ and ‘Teach-Outs’, local rallies and two London demonstrations. It also led to the development of very important links with students, who joined picket lines, signed a nationally-organised petition demanding financial compensation for missed classes, and in a number of places engaged in highly impressive solidarity occupations directed at university administrations.

            Animated UCU members’ discussions and debates on the picket line and at meetings then translated into the infusion of life into many semi-moribund UCU branches. The underlying transformation of the union was also manifested in the stunning union recruitment figures of thousands of new members, including many insecure, short-term and part-time contract staff. The #NoCapitulation and #ReviseandResubmit revolts, including the mass lobbying of the HEC/branch delegate meetings, as well as the large minority vote against accepting the second offer that called off the action, were indicative of a wider rank-and-file rebellion against national negotiators. The use of social media by numerous local UCU branches and active strikers, notably Twitter (particularly #USSbriefs) and local WhatsApp groups, further enhanced the horizontal exchange of information, ideas, arguments and debates. Also of major significance was the way in which the strike went well beyond the immediate issue of pensions to represent a generalised questioning of the neoliberal transformation of universities in recent years (with its marketization, commodification and rampant managerialism) in favour of an alternative democratised public higher education system.

            Notwithstanding the differences in viewpoint as to whether the dispute should have been called off or not (amongst BUIRA members as well as union members generally), the 2018 UCU strike action should clearly not be viewed as a one-off or closed affair. Quite apart from the way in which the pensions issue is likely to rear its head again a few months down the road, there are other crucial issues on which the battleground is likely to continue, such as pay, casualization, restructuring and job losses, REF, etc, in which case the recent transformative experience of collective strike action and rejuvenation of UCU that has occurred will require assessment and reassessment.

            In the process, if the 2018 pensions dispute will have ‘brought home’ the enduring relevance of the academic subject matter of employment relations and trade unionism to BUIRA members within higher education, it has also underlined the importance for many BUIRA academics of being trade unionists whose ‘partisan’ ideological and practical intervention – in being active participants who took the side of university staff in struggle against the employers - is an integral part of their identity and portfolio at work.

            It is against this backcloth we are delighted to announce a special extended 2-hour plenary session on the UCU strike has been organised at BUIRA’s annual conference. It will be comprised of two panels of speakers that will run back-to-back. The first panel will discuss/debate the overall strategy and tactics adopted by UCU within the dispute, with two speakers: John Kelly (Birkbeck) and Phil Taylor (Strathclyde). The second panel will have three UCU speakers, Jo Grady (Sheffield), Rachel Cohen (City) and Sean Wallis (UCL), reflecting on aspects of the dispute, such as local union organisation, social media usage, links with students, balloting process, final deal, and wider questions and implications raised about employment relations and trade unionism within higher education. The intention is to keep both sets of panel contributions fairly brief (no more than 10 minutes for each speaker) in order to enable plenty of time for discussion, debate and argument from the floor of the conference (albeit speakers will have the opportunity to come back within the questions and discussion period).  We hope you will be able to come along to join the discussion, hopefully attending the whole of the BUIRA conference, or just this special plenary session.

Further details: Professor Ralph Darlington r.r.darlington@salford.ac.uk

4th May 2018

Support of "European Appeal" as part of the ETUC strategy for "More Democracy at work"

The ETUC is issuing a European appeal for more democracy at work and isseeking signatures in support. Details of the policy can be found at:
https://www.etuc.org/documents/etuc-resolution-strategy-more-democracy-work-0#.Wul1IvlKuUn

To register support, send a mail to Wolfgang Kowalsky via WKOWALSK@ETUC.ORG

2nd May 2018

Event: BUIRA conference 2018 - Registration now open

Registration for the BUIRA conference is now open!

 Please register by following the link https://www.buira.net/conference/11/register

Note that you must be a BUIRA member to register - you can join on the same page.

Below you will find some information about accommodation and the general conference schedule.

We look forward to seeing you in June!

The BUIRA team

BUIRA Conference 2018, Middlesex University, London

When: 27-29 June

Where: Hendon Campus 

Accommodation: 

Student accommodation

Other: 

Hendon Hall   

Travelodge (Finchley)   

 (143 bus every 12 mins – 15 mins to Hendon campus)

Holiday Inn Brent Cross 

Schedule

Wednesday 27^thJune

09.00                    Registration opens

09.15-13.00         PhD workshop

12.00-13.00         Lunch

13.00-13.15         Conference opens, welcome

13.15-15.15         Plenary: the 2018 Universities Pension Dispute

15.15-15.30         Refreshments

15.30-17.00         Paper Session 1 

17.15-18.45         Paper Session 2 

19.00                   Drinks reception and Barbecue meal at MDX House Quad

Thursday 28^thJune

09.00-10.30         Paper Session 3

10.30-10.45         Refreshments

10.45-12.15         Paper Session 4 

12.15-13.15         BUIRA AGM

13.15-14.00         Lunch

14.00-15.45         Unions, politics and policy plenary 

15.45-16.15         Refreshments

16.15-17.45         Paper Session 5

17.45-18.30         BUIRA study groups

19.30                   Conference dinner – Canal Museum, Kings Cross

Friday 30^thJune

09.30-11.00         Paper Session 6  

11.00-11.15         Refreshments

11.15-12.45         Paper Session 7 

12.45-13.30         Lunch

13.30                   Conference closes 

27th April 2018

Event: Greenwich Diversity Interest Group Conference

Greenwich Diversity Interest Group Conference
11th Jun 2018 9:30am - 6:30pm
Greenwich Campus, Queen Anne Building, Room 063, Park Row, London SE10 9LS

The Diversity Interest Group at the University of Greenwich is showcasing its research on Equality and Diversity in a one day conference on Monday 11 June 2018 9:30am – 6:30pm in QA063.

Key note speech from Professor Tracey Reynolds: "Mind(ful) of the gap: intersectionality and the challenges of diversity in higher education"

Plus conference presentations from researchers at the University of Greenwich on the themes of:

• Education
• Careers and Employment
• Justice

Including a practitioner focus from Sarah Crowe

Vice President | Senior Consultant- Diversity and Inclusion– EMEA, Northern Trust.

Followed by a roundtable including Professor Sian Moore and Dr Jason Arday.

To register, please email Business Events with your name and job title to attend.

Professor Tracey Reynolds: Tracey's teaching and research interests focus on transnational families and kinship networks; constructions of motherhood and parenting & youth studies, and she has established international recognition within these fields of expertise. She has conducted extensive empirical research in the UK across a range of social issues including black and minority families living in disadvantaged communities, the study of families and in the Caribbean and North America. Research awards include Economic Social Research Council awards on Caribbean youths and transnational identities; Big Lottery on care planning among BAME older people in London (with Age UK Lewisham and Southwark) and Arts Humanities Research Council on migrant mothers' citizenship.

Professor Sian Moore: Director of the Work and Employment Research Unit, University of Greenwich. Sian joined the University of Greenwich as Professor in Employment Relations and Human Resource Management and Director of the Work and Employment Research Unit (WERU) in September 2015. She was previously Professor of Work and Employment Relations and Co-Director of the Centre for Employment Studies Research (CESR) at the University of the West of England. 

Dr Jason Arday: a Senior Lecturer in Education at Roehampton University, School of Education, a Visiting Research Fellow at The Ohio State University in the Office of Diversity and Inclusion and a Trustee of the Runnymede Trust and Co-Chair of the Runnymede Academic Forum. He has recently completed an edited collection with Professor Heidi Mirza (Goldsmiths, University of London) entitled Dismantling Race in Higher Education: Racism, Whiteness and Decolonising the Academy (Palgrave).

Target audience: current students, staff, alumni, general public​

27th April 2018

Event: Framing Work: Competing Analytical Perspectives on Employment Relations

Framing Work: Competing Analytical Perspectives on Employment Relations

Manchester Industrial Relations Society

Shirley Lerner Memorial Lecture

Speaker: Professor Ed Heery 

Professor of Employment Relations

Cardiff Business School, University of Cardiff

http://www.mirs.org.uk/index.html

Thursday 3 May 6pm
Lecture Theatre G33, Ground Floor
Manchester Metropolitan University Business School
All Saints, Oxford Road (near Oxford Road railway station), Manchester M15 6BH
Map:  http://www.mmu.ac.uk/travel/allsaints/

Free ‘nibbles and drinks’ buffet after the meeting from 7.30pm

Contemporary writing on the employment relationship falls into three broad traditions: a unitary tradition that assumes there is a natural coincidence in the interests of employer and worker; a pluralist tradition that believes regulation is required to enable workers to advance their own, separate and distinct interests against those of the employer; and a critical tradition that perceives a fundamental cleavage in the interests of workers and employers and celebrates worker resistance to employer domination.

This presentation will identify the defining features of these competing traditions, or frames of reference as they are often known, and will show how their separate conceptions of the relative interests of workers and employers leads to distinctive research agenda, modes of explanation, prescriptions for practice, and particular ways of engaging with the public sphere. The presentation will also consider the relationship between the frames and will identify the typical forms of contention and debate in which they engage.

For further details see:

Professor Ralph Darlington: r.r.darlington@salford.ac.uk 0161-295-5456

Twitter: @ManchesterIRS

26th April 2018

Event: Central London BUIRA Seminar: Union Organising Globally: Chinese and Latin American Ports Compared

Central London BUIRA Seminar:

 Union Organising Globally:

Chinese and Latin American Ports Compared

Katy Fox-Hodess, Worker Power, Trade Union Strategy and International Connections: A Cross-National Comparison of Dockworker Unionism in Latin America

Dr Tim Pringle (SOAS) Labour organizing, trade union reform and working class power in China

Friday 25 May 2018, 10.30am – 12.30pm, followed by buffet lunch

University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS

(opposite Madame Tussauds and nearly opposite Baker Street tube)
Room C279 (lunch C287)

For further details and to reserve a place, contact Linda Clarke (clarkel@wmin.ac.uk)

This regular monthly seminar is focused on unions and labour movements in Europe, Latin America and China, with the examples of maritime and dock workers and we are fortunate to have two very expert speakers:

Katy Fox Hodess presents some of the findings of her PhD, entitled Dockworkers of the World Unite: Transnational Class Formation and the New Labor Internationalism, in which she examines the construction of ‘bottom-up’ labor internationalism by rank-and-file dockworker union activists affiliated to the International Dockworkers Council. Katy will discuss union coordination in response to recent labor disputes in Latin America (Chile, Colombia). Katy is undertaking her PhD thesis in Sociology at the University of California at Berkeley and is currently is a lecturer in Work, Employment, People and Organisations at the University of Sheffield. Her publications include ‘(Re-)Locating the Local and National in the Global: Multi-Scalar Political Alignment in Transnational European Dockworker Union Campaigns’ British Journal of Industrial Relations,2017

Tim Pringle is a senior lecturer in Labour, Social Movements and Development. His research is focussed on East Asia, in particular labour relations, trade union reform and social movements and labour migration in China and Vietnam. He is also the editor of China Quarterly. Tim will present research focuses on the extent that the Party-led All-China Federation of Trade Unions is able to establish functioning trade union branches at enterprise level, drawing on a case study of the Yantian International Container Terminal. Tim will argue that the YICT union developed a system of annual collective bargaining in order to ‘tame’ the power of militant dockworkers and prevent strikes. This required an effective enterprise-level trade union that was able to manipulate members’ somewhat ambiguous acceptance of its role.

This 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 this event. These meetings can be full though so, if you would like to attend and to help forecast catering provision, please Contact:Professor Linda Clarke,  clarkel@wmin.ac.uk or 020350 66528

25th April 2018

Journal of Industrial Relations - Call for special issue proposals

20th April 2018

Specially Extended Plenary Session: BUIRA Conference 2018

The 2018 UCU Pensions Dispute:

Assessment and Implications

Wednesday 27 June 1.15pm-3.15pm

Middlesex University, London (Hendon campus)

Speakers: John Kelly (Birkbeck), Phil Taylor (Strathclyde), Jo McNeill (Liverpool),  Jo Grady (Sheffield) and Sean Wallis (UCL)

BUIRA members will undoubtedly agree that the 2018 British Universities pensions’ dispute has been a watershed moment for both industrial relations and trade unionism within higher education. Ironically, given the predominant discourse that suggests strike activity and trade unionism has become increasingly irrelevant in today’s changed world of work, the USS dispute’s well organised and innovative forms of collective organisation and activity produced unprecedented transformative developments that have been ‘grist for the mill’ for BUIRA members.

Significantly, UCU’s central strategy of strike mobilisation (in line with its recent Commission on Effective Industrial Action) broke with the limited one or two-day national strikes of the past (over pay, and pensions) with its call for sustained (virtually continuous) 14-days of strike action. If the busting of the Tories’ 2016 Trade Union Act balloting thresholds (both in terms of participation levels and percentage voting in favour of strike action) surprised many, the way in which the protracted nature of the action was then enthusiastically embraced by the mass of the union’s eligible membership also staked completely new ground with wide-ranging implications.

In forcing the employers to rethink and climb down (in some respects at least) - as vice chancellors in a number of institutions broke ranks with UUK - it demonstrated in graphic relief the enduring power of effective collective strike action. It also provided time for strikers to organise, gain confidence and build links among themselves within their respective institutions and across universities. If in the past picket lines had been small and routine affairs, they now developed over the course of four weeks into relatively much larger and more vibrant pickets of defiance. The sustained nature of the action provided the basis for regular (often daily) mass meetings, the formation of strike committees, organisation of ‘Teach-Ins’ and ‘Teach-Outs’, local rallies and two London demonstrations. It also led to the development of very important links with students, who joined picket lines, signed a nationally-organised petition demanding financial compensation for missed classes, and in a number of places engaged in highly impressive solidarity occupations directed at university administrations.

Animated UCU members’ discussions and debates on the picket line and at meetings then translated into the infusion of life into many semi-moribund UCU branches. The underlying transformation of the union was also manifested in the stunning union recruitment figures of thousands of new members, including many insecure, short-term and part-time contract staff. The #NoCapitulation and #ReviseandResubmit revolts, including the mass lobbying of the HEC/branch delegate meetings, as well as the large minority vote against accepting the second offer that called off the action, were indicative of a wider rank-and-file rebellion against national negotiators. The use of social media by numerous local UCU branches and active strikers, notably Twitter (particularly #USSbriefs) and local WhatsApp groups, further enhanced the horizontal exchange of information, ideas, arguments and debates. Also of major significance was the way in which the strike went well beyond the immediate issue of pensions to represent a generalised questioning of the neoliberal transformation of universities in recent years (with its marketization, commodification and rampant managerialism) in favour of an alternative democratised public higher education system.

Notwithstanding the differences in viewpoint as to whether the dispute should have been called off or not (amongst BUIRA members as well as union members generally), the 2018 UCU strike action should clearly not be viewed as a one-off or closed affair. Quite apart from the way in which the pensions issue is likely to rear its head again a few months down the road, there are other crucial issues on which the battleground is likely to continue, such as pay, casualization, restructuring and job losses, REF, etc, in which case the recent transformative experience of collective strike action and rejuvenation of UCU that has occurred will require assessment and reassessment.

            In the process, if the 2018 pensions dispute will have ‘brought home’ the enduring relevance of the academic subject matter of employment relations and trade unionism to BUIRA members within higher education, it has also underlined the importance for many BUIRA academics of being trade unionists whose ‘partisan’ ideological and practical intervention – in being active participants who took the side of university staff in struggle against the employers - is an integral part of their identity and portfolio at work.

            It is against this backcloth we are delighted to announce a special extended 2-hour plenary session on the UCU strike has been organised at BUIRA’s annual conference. It will be comprised of two panels of speakers that will run back-to-back. The first panel will discuss/debate the overall strategy and tactics adopted by UCU within the dispute, with two speakers: John Kelly (Birkbeck) and Phil Taylor (Strathclyde). The second panel will have three UCU speakers, Jo McNeill (Liverpool), Jo Grady (Sheffield) and Sean Wallis (UCL), reflecting on aspects of the dispute, such as local union organisation, social media usage, links with students, balloting process, final deal, and wider questions and implications raised about employment relations and trade unionism within higher education. The intention is to keep both sets of panel contributions fairly brief (no more than 10 minutes for each speaker) in order to enable plenty of time for discussion, debate and argument from the floor of the conference (albeit speakers will have the opportunity to come back within the questions and discussion period). 

We hope you will be able to come along to join the discussion, hopefully attending the whole of the BUIRA conference, or just this special plenary session.

Further details: Professor Ralph Darlington r.r.darlington@salford.ac.uk

20th April 2018

Event: BUIRA History of Industrial Relations Study Group

Deindustrialisation and Industrial Relations in Scotland: 1960s until Today

Thursday 7 June 2018: 15.30-17.30 (Tea/ coffee from 15.00)

Room C279, University of Westminster Business School, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS (opposite Madame Tussauds and nearly opposite Baker Street tube)

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).

Programme:

3.00-3.20pm: Tea/ coffee/ refreshments

3.20pm: Welcome and introductions: Michael Gold and Linda Clarke (Chairs)

3.30-4.00pm: Jim Phillips, Jim Tomlinson and Valerie Wright (presented by Jim Phillips)

Deindustrialisation, Ownership and Industrial Relations, c. 1963-1993: Evidence from Linwood Car Manufacturing and Timex Dundee

Deindustrialisation was a phased and managed process, which structured industrial relations. From the mid-1950s industrial workers and communities in Scotland were persuaded to trade ‘old’ jobs in the staples for ‘new’ jobs in lighter engineering. ‘New’ employers acquired obligations, partly because public money was involved in establishing business premises and associated housing. The cases of Linwood car manufacturing and Timex Dundee show that workers exerted moral economy claims to ownership of these new jobs and factories. Through trade union organisation, embedded in community and familial ties, they challenged managerial sovereignty, particularly at points of transition or crisis.

4.00-4.30pm: Dr Jenny O’Neil and Dr Vaughan Ellis

Unheard Voices of Decline: Scottish Oil Sector

This paper examines how employment in the Scottish oil industry is changing as the industry declines, shedding in excess of 120,000 jobs between 2014 and 2016 as oil prices fell. Yet, the absence of workers’ voice in policy discussions about how best to safeguard the industry and utilise their skills has meant that other stakeholders’ interests have been privileged. Drawing from in depth oral history interviews with off shore oil workers, it is argued that workers are experiencing lower wages, fewer shifts, difficulty accessing re-training and career changes as well as adverse effects on family life and wellbeing.

4.30-5.00pm: General discussion

5.00pm: Close (followed by drinks until 5.30pm)
 

The speakers:

Jim Phillips is a Senior Lecturer in Economic and Social History at the University of Glasgow, where he and his c-authors are working on a Leverhulme-funded project, Employment, Politics and Culture in Scotland since 1955. Jim co-edits Scottish Labour History and Historical Studies in Industrial Relations.

Dr Jenny O’Neil is a Lecturer in Labour Relations and Global HRM at Edinburgh Napier University. Her research interests include skills development within turbulent environments, employee voice and Global HRM.

Dr Vaughan Ellis is a Lecturer in Work and Industrial Relations specialising in the contemporary organisation and experience of work, and how changes in an organisations' external environment impact upon the labour process.

18th April 2018

Event: Making use of Oral History

Britain at Work (B@W) 1945-95 in association with British Universities’ Industrial Relations (BUIRA) IR History Group and Oral History Society (OHS)

Saturday 2 June 2018, 11am – 4.45pm

University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS

(opposite Madame Tussauds and nearly opposite Baker Street tube)

Room C279 (lunch C287)

For further details or to reserve a place, please email Michael Gold (m.gold@rhul.ac.uk) or Linda Clarke (clarkel@wmin.ac.uk)

This year’s Britain at Work Oral Labour History Day will focus on what we do with the recordings we make, both audio and video. How do we share what we learn from interviews and how do we make sure that oral histories we collect are preserved for future use in safe environments and archives? The day will begin with an opening address by Robert Perks, Lead Curator, Oral History and the Director of National Life Stories at the British Library. Rob is also secretary of the Oral History Society and an editor of the journal Oral History. He will talk about developments and opportunities for the dissemination and sustainability of oral history collections.

Rob will be followed by a roundtable reports from participants currently involved in oral history in work settings. After lunch, there will be presentations from presenters whose oral history projects have resulted in books, films, pop-up museum and a comic. The day will end with a presentation from Martin Astell (tbc), Sound and Video Archivist at Essex Record Office, who will talk about being an archivist working in a local authority museum/archive and the challenges besetting local archives and archivists at the moment.

B@W is an initiative to capture the memories of people at work between 1945 and 1995, some of which are to found at the TUC Library Collections held at London Metropolitan University (www.unionhistory.info/britainatwork)..

Draft Programme

10.30-11.00 Registration

11.00-11.15 Welcome and introduction: Michael Gold and Linda Clarke

11.15-12.00 Keynote: How can I future-proof my oral history project? Guidance on best archival and legal practice for preservation and public access and reuse’. Rob Perks, Lead Curator, Oral History & Director of National Life Stories at the British Library. Chair: Joanna Bornat

12.00-13.00 Roundtable: brief contributions from participants on their current interest in oral labour history. Chair: Michael Gold

13.00-14.00 Lunch: 

14.00-15.25

Presentations. Chair: John Gabriel tbc

• Alex Gordon/ Chris Reeves (RMT History Project)
• Sally Groves (author of Trico: a victory to remember)
• Sundari Anitha / Ruth Pearson (Striking Women educational website + book)
• Padmini Broomfield (Ford Transition Pop-up Museum, Southampton)

15.25-15.45 Break

15.45-16.15 Local collections: Martin Astell, Essex Record Office tbc. Chair:

16.15-16.45 Discussion + closing observations. Chair: tbc

18th April 2018

Event: Central London BUIRA Seminar: Labour Migration

Labour Migration

Professor Bridget Anderson (University of Bristol) on Labour market flexibility and citizenship rights

Dr Rachel Marangozov (Institute of Employment Studies) on Brexit and beyond: A perfect storm for our nursing workforce?’

Friday 27 April 2018, 10.30am – 12.30pm, followed by buffet lunch

University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS

(opposite Madame Tussauds and nearly opposite Baker Street tube)
Room C279 (lunch C287)

For further details and to reserve a place, contact Linda Clarke (clarkel@wmin.ac.uk)

This regular monthly seminar is focused on labour migration, a particularly topical theme given on-going Brexit negotiations and we are fortunate to have two expert speakers:

Bridget Anderson, Professor of Professor of Migration, Mobilities and Citizenship in the School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies at the University of Bristol, explores the tension between labour market flexibilities and citizenship rights. She will discuss the functions of immigration in key labour market sectors and the ways in which immigration controls increasingly impact on citizens as well as migrants. From 2013-2017 Bridget was Research Director of COMPAS (Centre of Migration, Policy and Society) at the University of Oxford. She has always worked closely with migrants’ organisations, trades unions and legal practitioners at local, national and international level. Her publications include: Us and Them? The Dangerous Politics of Immigration Controls (Oxford University Press, 2013); Who Needs Migrant Workers? Labour Shortages, Immigration and Public Policy, co-edited with Martin Ruhs (Oxford University Press, 2012); The Social, Political and Historical Contours of Deportation with Matthew Gibney and Emanuela Paoletti (Springer, 2013); and Migration and Care Labour: Theory, Policy and Politics with Isabel Shutes (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).

Rachel Marangozov, Research Associate at the Institute for Employment Studies (IES) and Director of MigrationWork CIC, will present findings from 2 IES studies:1) for the Migration Advisory Committee, on whether nursing should be kept on the Shortage Occupation List; and 2) on the risks of Brexit to the nursing workforce. She will question the sustainability of continued reliance on a foreign workforce of nurses. Rachel specializes in the labour market disadvantage of ethnic minority groups and migrant workers. She previously worked at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) on a range of equality and diversity issues and is a Director of MigrationWork CIC, which helps communities, policymakers, and practitioners respond to migration. Her work there has involved projects for the European Commission in both the United Kingdom and in several European Member States on a range of integration issues.

This 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 this event. These meetings can be full though so, if you would like to attend and to help forecast catering provision, please Contact: Professor Linda Clarke,  clarkel@wmin.ac.uk or 020350 66528

17th April 2018

TUC 150th Anniversary Conference: Speakers Announced

TUC 150^th Anniversary Conference: Retrospect and Prospects

Organised in conjunction with the Manchester Industrial Relations Society

Friday 1 June 10am-6.30pm

Mechanics Institute, Princess Street, Manchester

Timetable

9am – 10am: Registration

10am: Opening remarks

10.15 – 11.30: Panel Session1chaired by Lynne Morris, UNISON/TUC North West Chair

The role of the TUC in significant disputes

• Professor Ralph Darlington Professor of Employment Relations, University of Salford,

   and secretary of Manchester Industrial Relations Society

• Professor John Kelly, Professor of Industrial Relations, Birkbeck, University of London

• trade union speaker tbc

11.30 – 12.45: Panel session 2 Chaired by Lynn Collins, TUC North West

TUC Relations with Labour in Government and opposition

• Sarah Veale, former Head of Equality and Employment Rights, TUC

• Keith Ewing – Professor of Public Law, King’s College London

• John McDonnell MP, Labour Party Shadow Chancellor

12.45 – 1.45: Lunch

1.45 – 3.00: Panel Session 3 chaired by Paula Wood, PCS/TUC North West

TUC Framing Laws and Changing Laws

• John Hendy QC Old Square Chambers, London

• Stephen Cavalier, Chief Executive, Thompsons solicitors

• Hannah Reed, Senior Employment Rights Officer TUC

3.00 – 4.15: Panel session 4 chaired by Peter Middleman NEU/TUC North West

The Organising Academy and beyond

• Melanie Simms, Professor of Work and Employment, University of Glasgow

• Sally Hunt – TUC President and UCU General Secretary

• Paul Nowak – TUC Deputy General Secretary

4.15 – 6.30pm:

Closing Remarks followed by a Beer and Sandwiches reception,

hosted by Thompsons Solicitors

Registration for the conference costs £10 which includes copies of presentations, lunch and

closing reception. A number of student places will be made available at a reduced rate of £5.

You can register via the Eventbrite link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/tuc150-retrospects-and-prospects-tickets-42781768421

16th April 2018

Event: Human Resource Management and the Shifting Global Landscape

British Academy of Management Human Resource Management Special Interest Group

One-Day Conference: Human Resource Management and the Shifting Global Landscape

Deadline for abstract submissions 20/04/18.

The purpose of this year’s conference is to bring together academics, policymakers and practitioners to examine the changing world of work. Given current developments - such as Brexit, travel bans, and mass human displacement - organisations are increasingly looking for ways not only to navigate through current challenges, but also to be able to compete sustainably and thrive through unforeseen future events. The conference aims to offer an opportunity for dialogue among academics, practitioners and policy makers, and to consider future challenges and potential responses in relation to Human Resource Management (HRM). 

In an era, where the competition for talent is fierce (Schuler, Jackson, & Tarique, 2011) and unforeseen circumstances constantly shift the political and economical landscape (Wood and Budhwar, 2016), studies demonstrate that organisations need more elaborate HRM approaches for sustainable performance (Andreeva, et al., 2017; Glaister, Liu, Sahadev, & Gomes, 2014). Further to this, recent high-profile job harassment cases have questioned the role of HR as an ethical steward (Caldwell et al., 2011) and have reignited debates regarding whether HR practitioners focus on the human or the resource side of the management of human resources (Delbridge & Keenoy, 2010). It is perhaps high time that we move beyond the examination of a decontextualized HRM towards a more holistic appreciation of the world of work. In line with this, there have been important calls for more integration between HRM and other relevant streams of management research such as talent management and international business (e.g. Allen, Lee, Reiche, 2015), as well as the broader social sciences.

This event will take place on the 15th June 2018 in Birmingham.

We invite contributions from a variety of theoretical and methodological perspectives that address any of the areas or the workshop theme more generally:
 

• Generational differences, inclusion and diversity in a global economy
• Global employment relations and mobility
• Working conditions during crises (economic, political, societal) across the world
• Talent Sourcing and Management in multinationals, SMEs and the public sector
• The gig economy and its implications for HR in a global context
• Corporate Social Responsibility and Ethics in HR
• HR and employment practices across different countries and cultures

Keynote Speakers:

·         Professor Catherine Cassell (University of Birmingham, UK) 

·         Professor David Collings (Dublin City University, Ireland)

Please submit an extended abstract of up to 2000 words via email to Dr Margarita Nyfoudi via e-mail m.nyfoudi@bham.ac.uk Deadline for submissions: 20th April 2018 at 12.00 UK time.

In the submission e-mail, please attach the abstract in a word or pdf file and include the following information in the message: Title, Author(s) Name(s), E-mail

University of Birmingham kindly sponsors the facilities for the event

If you have any queries or would like to discuss a potential submission, please contact 

Dr Margarita Nyfoudi: m.nyfoudi@bham.ac.uk

16th April 2018

Framing Work: Competing Analytical Perspectives on Employment Relations

Framing Work: Competing Analytical Perspectives on Employment Relations

Manchester Industrial Relations Society

Shirley Lerner Memorial Lecture

Speaker: Professor Ed Heery 

Professor of Employment Relations

Cardiff Business School, University of Caridff

http://www.mirs.org.uk/index.html

Thursday 3 May 6pm
Lecture Theatre G33, Ground Floor
Manchester Metropolitan University Business School
All Saints, Oxford Road (near Oxford Road railway station), Manchester M15 6BH
Map:  http://www.mmu.ac.uk/travel/allsaints/

Contemporary writing on the employment relationship falls into three broad traditions: a unitary tradition that assumes there is a natural coincidence in the interests of employer and worker; a pluralist tradition that believes regulation is required to enable workers to advance their own, separate and distinct interests against those of the employer; and a critical tradition that perceives a fundamental cleavage in the interests of workers and employers and celebrates worker resistance to employer domination.

This presentation will identify the defining features of these competing traditions, or frames of reference as they are often known, and will show how their separate conceptions of the relative interests of workers and employers leads to distinctive research agenda, modes of explanation, prescriptions for practice, and particular ways of engaging with the public sphere. The presentation will also consider the relationship between the frames and will identify the typical forms of contention and debate in which they engage.

For further details see:

Professor Ralph Darlington: r.r.darlington@salford.ac.uk

0161-295-5456

Twitter: @ManchesterIRS

13th April 2018

ERU Conference at Cardiff: Global Value Chains and their Employment Relations Consequences 10/11 May 2018

Global Value Chains and their Employment Relations Consequences

ERU Conference: 10-11 May 2018,

Location: Cardiff Business School, Cardiff, UK

Organisers:

Jonathan Morris (Cardiff University) Jimmy Donaghey (Warwick University) Jean Jenkins (Cardiff University) Richard Locke (Brown University) Rachel Ashworth (Cardiff University)

Conference Aims and Scope:

This year’s Employment Research Unit Conference will take place on 10-11 May 2018 at Cardiff Business School on the theme of Global Value Chains and their Employment Relations Consequences. Keynote speakers will include Richard Locke, Mark Anner, Jennifer Bair, Andrew Crane and Klara Skrivankova and a special issue of the BJIR will accompany the conference. The conference team welcomes paper submissions that focus on the link between supply chain decisions and employment conditions. The attached call for papers provides further details.

Please note, there are funds to support the attendance of PhD students and early career researchers for this event. If anyone wishes to take advantage of such funding, they should please contact Jean Jenkins at jenkinsj1@cardiff.ac.uk in the first instance.

Conference Schedule:

10^th May 2018, 2-5pm, Symposium on Exploitative Work, Cardiff Business School

10^th May 2018, 7-10pm, Conference dinner, Cardiff Bay

11^th May 2018, 9-5pm, Conference paper sessions, Cardiff Business School.

Call for papers

The conference and proposed special issue of BJIR concerns the issue of the emergence, growth and evolution of global commodity chains and related employment relations issues. The relationship between supply chain relationships and the workplace is topical and referred to explicitly by the ILO agenda on international work and by the OECDs concerns with skills (OECD, 2017). While topical, much of the research in the area focuses on power relations between firms in chains and employment relations concerns being a secondary issue. However, this is changing and for example an emerging number of recent publications in the BJIR examine the employment relations consequences of supply chains. As such, this initiative proposes to bring this emerging research together into a coherent and unified volume.

Globalisation of production has brought significant economic growth and employment opportunities; for example, it has been estimated that 80% of world trade passes through GVCs (UNCTAD, 2013) and some 453 million jobs have been created in OECD and emerging economies (ILO, 2015). Further, it was once assumed that economic upgrading of value chains would lead to social upgrading. However, the potential asymmetric power relationships in supply chains have implications for both the employment relationship and social relations at work. This is particularly so in situations where there has been a ‘race to the bottom’ to secure contracts through low wages where, for example, industry entry and exit costs are low and developing economies are fearful of footloose large firms ‘cutting and running’ or where small firms in the lower tiers of the chain face being left behind. Participation in such chains may therefore result, in the worst case scenario, in country-wide economic benefits in developing countries but a degradation of working conditions and ‘social downgrading’, particularly for those working in low tier suppliers and irregular, informal, female and immigrant workers. Indeed, while there has been an extensive literature on GVC, there is increasing concern with the use of, for example, child labour, vulnerable workers and working conditions.

There have been attempts to use a variety of regulatory methods to improve work standards, tied to the ILO’s Decent Work Framework, but such attempts to regulate labour standards in chains (particularly apparel and footwear ones supplying to major western retailers and brands), may force undue pressures on firms in the supply chain trying to reconcile the conflicting demands of cheap labour and suppliers asking for higher standards. To date, much of this research has been framed in terms of the Corporate Social Responsibility agenda, however the industrial relations lens brings a particularly important and underexplored focus. The competition for surplus value between local, national and international capital has led to many examples of extreme demands on workforces already subject to multiple layers of socio-economic disadvantage. In such contexts, both public, statutory and private, voluntary regulation have proved woefully inadequate, particularly over issues of enforcement and non-compliance.

However, there is evidence that supply chains are evolving (to include, for example, high skill level services in locations such as India) and consolidating (for example, in the automotive industry) but also that the continuing geographical spread of activity may be under some threat as a consequence of automation, with consequences for the potential for national upgrading strategies (OECD, 2017).

The special issue seeks to consolidate recent research in the area and advance theoretical and applied knowledge on how decisions in the supply chain impact upon employment relations at work. As such we wish to draw papers from a number of disciplines including human resource management and the sociology of work, as well as industrial relations. In this special issue we wish to elicit submissions that are rich in empirical content and connect to theory in such a way as to build a detailed picture of the ways that broader social phenomena play out at the workplace level, in the specific context of international value chains and production networks. We would, therefore, welcome submissions from a range of areas including the effects of global supply chains on social relations at work. Research has focused on the role of MNCs in implementing employment practices across borders and the development of global supply chains. Much of this has been driven by the emergence of global value chains, which in turn are predicated upon trade liberalisation and intense (often labour) cost competition. We would like to see papers which draw upon:

(1) Control, struggle and the labour process in GVCs, for example, labour control and resistance in production at GVCs which has led to increased work intensity and control through pay systems, employer control over workers and threats to independent unionism.

(2) Class, rights and identity in industrial relations in GVCs, focussing on the ‘intersectionality’ of class, gender, race and ethnicity, and the exploitation of migrant labour.

(3) The presence of forced labour and modern-day slavery in value chains.

The special issue would also welcome papers on the governance of global value chains and the role of private, public and social regulation, including NGOs and international trade unions. We would like to see papers which draw upon:

(1) Institution building in GVCs which highlight both the potential and the complexities of institution building.

(2) Social accountability and sustainable work in GVCs, encompassing not only issues of job quality and the decent work agenda but also issues of private versus public regulation.

(3) Human relations and workplace realities in GVCs, focussing on the debate over human rights versus employment rights.

(4) The extent to which apparatuses such as Codes of Conduct and International Framework Agreements have enabled the democratisation of workplaces.

(5) Emerging connections between civil society and the trade union movement.

References:

ILO (2015) World Employment and Social Outlook 2015. Geneva: ILO.

OECD (2017) OECD Skills Outlook, 2017: Skills and Global Value Chains. Paris: OECD.

UNCTAD (2013) World Investment Report: Global Value Chains. Geneva: United Nations Publications.

Conference submission information:

Authors wishing to present a paper at the ERU Conference should send a 1000 word abstract to the organisers by 13 April, 2018. The abstract should outline the paper’s rationale and, if empirical, its main methods and results. After the conference authors will be invited to revise the papers within three months for submission to the journal. All papers for publication will be subject to the strict BJIR refereeing procedure Guidelines for BJIR authors can be found at

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1467-8543

In the event of queries, please contact: Jean Jenkins at jenkinsj1@cardiff.ac.uk in the first instance.

6th April 2018

PhD Position Available: WBS/ProBE Studentship

Research Studentship on Climate Change, Labour and Work at Westminster Business School, University of Westminster

Three years, full time  

£16,000 annual stipend plus fee waiver

A full-time University of Westminster PhD Studentship is available in the Centre for the Study of the Production of the Built Environment (ProBE) starting in September 2018. This PhD studentship is part of ProBE’s programme of research on Climate Change and Work, conducted in partnership with the York University, Toronto, funded by the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), led by Professor Carla Lipsig Mummé and entitled Adapting Canadian Work and Workplaces, an international perspective (ACW). The programme explores the role of work and global warming and the role of organised workers as a force for adaptation. ProBE is responsible for the international dimension, with projects on green transition strategies and worker agency in Europe and the US, as well as in the built environment. The applicant is expected to have broad knowledge of the field and some experience of quantitative and qualitative research.

The student will be asked to do 6 hours of work per week as a research assistant to support ProBE’s ACW research and enhance REF 2020 submission. There may also be opportunities for exchange visits to Canada.

Eligible candidates will hold at least an upper second class honours degree and a Master’s degree. Candidates whose secondary level education has not been conducted in the medium of English should also demonstrate evidence of appropriate English language proficiency, normally defined as 6.5 in IELTS (with not less than 6.0 in any of the individual elements).

The Studentship consists of a full fee waiver at the Home Fee Rate of £5000 and a stipend of £16,000 per annum over three years of PhD study. The Studentship is open to Home and Overseas applicants, but overseas applicants must be aware that they will need to cover the difference between the Home and Overseas fee (Currently £8000 per year).

The closing date for applications is Monday, 14^th May 2018

For further information on how to apply, please visit: https://www.westminster.ac.uk/courses/research-degrees/research-areas/business/how-to-apply

When applying please ensure that you quote ‘WBS/ProBE Studentship’

Prospective candidates wishing to discuss an application informally should contact Professor Linda Clarke:clarkel@wmin.ac.uk

29th March 2018

PhD studentship: ESRC-Skills Development Scotland - Explaining employer engagement with apprenticeships

Description

The project is funded by the ESRC and Skills Development Scotland (SDS). The aims of the project are to explore the factors that influence employers' decisions about whether or not to develop apprenticeships, engage with apprenticeship policy, and how employers seek to shape the policy context around apprenticeship provision.

To achieve this, the research will use a mixed methods approach (secondary analysis of surveys and case studies of employers) to explore varying levels of employer engagement with apprenticeships in Scotland. In the first year, the doctoral researcher will explore existing quantitative data sets to identify patterns of engagement with apprenticeship provision. This analysis will inform the selection of at least six employer case studies in key sectors. The second year will therefore be spent working to secure access with participating employers, to understand the pressures within their sectors and industries, and interviewing key stakeholders (employers, managers, policy makers etc). The third year will be spent analyzing the data and writing up the doctoral thesis.

The successful applicant will work closely with individual employers as well as SDS and other stakeholders to deliver theoretically-rigorous and policy-relevant research. The project will result in reports to stakeholders as well as a written doctoral thesis.

Given the extensive work with employers, it is important that candidates have an understanding of how employing organisations make decisions. An interest in labour market policy is also an advantage. Candidates should be keen to develop strong qualitative research skills, and be open to opportunities to undertake training to develop quantitative data analysis skills. Candidates are likely to have a social science background, with some evidence of an enthusiasm to understand business decisions.

The PhD Project will be Lead-Supervised by Professor Melanie Simms in the Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow.

Further details:

https://www.gla.ac.uk/colleges/socialsciences/studentfundingopportunities/postgraduateresearch/#d.en.570622

Eligibility

Home/EU applicants are eligible to apply.  

ESRC eligibility information
http://www.esrc.ac.uk/funding-and-guidance/postgraduates/prospective-students/eligibility/index.aspx

26th March 2018

London BUIRA seminar Labour Migration 27 April 2018

Central London BUIRA Seminar:

Labour Migration

Professor Bridget Anderson (University of Bristol) on Labour market flexibility and citizenship rights

Dr Rachel Marangozov (Institute of Employment Studies) on Brexit and beyond: A prefect storm for our nursing workforce?’

Friday 27 April 2018, 10.30am – 12.30pm, followed by buffet lunch

University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS

(opposite Madame Tussauds and nearly opposite Baker Street tube)
Room C279 (lunch C287)

For further details and to reserve a place, contact Linda Clarke (clarkel@wmin.ac.uk)

This regular monthly seminar is focused onlabour migration, a particularly topical theme given on-going Brexit negotiations and we are fortunate to have two expert speakers:

Bridget Anderson, Professor of Professor of Migration, Mobilities and Citizenship in the School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies at the University of Bristol, explores the tension between labour market flexibilities and citizenship rights. She will discuss the functions of immigration in key labour market sectors and the ways in which immigration controls increasingly impact on citizens as well as migrants. From 2013-2017 Bridget was Research Director of COMPAS (Centre of Migration, Policy and Society) at the University of Oxford. She has always worked closely with migrants’ organisations, trades unions and legal practitioners at local, national and international level. Her publications include: Us and Them? The Dangerous Politics of Immigration Controls(Oxford University Press, 2013); Who Needs Migrant Workers? Labour Shortages, Immigration and Public Policy, co-edited with Martin Ruhs (Oxford University Press, 2012);The Social, Political and Historical Contours of Deportation with Matthew Gibney and Emanuela Paoletti (Springer, 2013); andMigration and Care Labour: Theory, Policy and Politics with Isabel Shutes (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).

Rachel Marangozov, Research Associate at the Institute for Employment Studies (IES)and Director of MigrationWork CIC, willpresent findings from 2 IES studies:1) for the Migration Advisory Committee, on whether nursing should be kept on the Shortage Occupation List; and 2) on the risks of Brexit to the nursing workforce. She will questionthe sustainability of continued reliance on a foreign workforce of nurses. Rachel specializes in the labour market disadvantage of ethnic minority groups and migrant workers. She previously worked at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) on a range of equality and diversity issues and is a Director of MigrationWork CIC, which helps communities, policymakers, and practitioners respond to migration. Her work there has involved projects for the European Commission in both the United Kingdom and in several European Member States on a range of integration issues.

This 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 this event. These meetings can be full though so, if you would like to attend and to help forecast catering provision, please Contact: Professor Linda Clarke, clarkel@wmin.ac.uk or 020350 66528

26th March 2018

ILERA 8th Regional Congress, Mauritius, 7-9 May 2018 - URGENT

Following the huge efforts of South African Labour and Employment Relations Association, we are happy to announce that the 8^th ILERA Regional Congress will be held in

the Intercontinental Resort Mauritius, Balaclava Fort, Balaclava, Mauritius from 7 to 9 May 2018 under the general theme:

CHALLENGES FACING THE FUTURE OF WORK: AFRICAN PERSPECTIVES AND EXPERIENCES

Attached please find the Call for Papers as well as a Congress information brochure.

More information can be found on: www.ilera-africa2018.co.za

23rd March 2018

The Fourth Biennial Fairness at Work Conference 'Justice at Work: Challenges and Possibilities' (Work and Equalities Institute, University of Manchester) - Submission Deadline Extended 

Work and Equalities Institute

The University of Manchester 
The Fourth Biennial Fairness at Work Conference 
'Justice at Work: Challenges and Possibilities’

10 & 11 September 2018 
Call for Papers

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: 20 April 2018

Building on the three previous Fairness at Work Conferences at the University of Manchester (in 2012, 2014, and 2016), the 2018 conference aims to bring together academics and practitioners to discuss strategic issues on the subject of justice and fairness at work. The last two years have seen a major shift in the political environment and an emergence of a politics of national insularity. Yet at the same time major strides have been made in raising awareness and support for living wage campaigns and improving workplace justice. The conference aims to discuss developments in our understandings of the impact of technological changes (e.g. the gig economy), the changing experiences of work amongst groups of vulnerable workers (e.g. younger workers), the impact of an increasingly hostile context on notions of justice and fairness at the workplace (e.g. a greater challenge to minority rights) and the responses and roles of trade unions and other civil society organisations in dealing with such challenges.

The conference is being held in Manchester at the same time as the 150^th Annual Conference of the UK’s Trade Unions Congress and will organise sessions linked to the TUC conference themes, with invited speakers and activities focused on the future of trade unions and worker regulation and rights.  The TUC was founded in Manchester in 1868 and the WEI Fairness at Work conference will include social and cultural activities linked to the labour history and struggles for equality of the city.

Papers are invited on these developments in the areas of fair treatment at work, diversity and equality, stress and well-being, dignity at work, employment regulation, worker participation, trade unionism, technology and work, and key elements of employment relations such as pay, pensions and working time.

Venue: The University of Manchester

Cost: £200 Waged (£50 unwaged) - includes all food and drink plus the conference dinner

Submission: Please Send 500 word abstracts or 1000 word for sessions by 20 April 2018 tofairwrcconferences@mbs.ac.uk

About the Work & Equalities Institute

The Work & Equalities Institute brings together the European Work and Employment Research Centre and Fairness at Work Research Centre with expertise across human resource management, industrial relations, labour economics, organisational psychology, and employment law. The team has a track record, built over more than twenty five years, of informing the evidence-base and policy agenda of the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the United Nations’ International Labour Organisation, as well as national organisations such as the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and others. WEI’s research is being used in knowledge exchange, dialogue and debate with key stakeholders and policy makers, and makes informed contributions to policy formation and practice. For more information, visit: https://www.mbs.ac.uk/research/centres-and-institutes/work-and-equalities-institute/

23rd March 2018

PhD Positions @ UCD Quinn School of Business

UCD have opened their call for PhD applications - for further information please follow the below link:

https://www.erc-europeanunions.eu/open-positions/

15th March 2018

EFES Newsletter - New facts about employee share ownership in March 2018

Please access the EFES Newsletter via the following link:

http://www.efesonline.org/EFES NEWS/2018/EFES NEWSLETTER - 3-2018 EN.htm

13th March 2018

PhD position in Working Life Science at Karlstad University / Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences / Business School

Description

This is a fixed-term position for four years at full time. Unless there are special circumstances, this is a full-time position, and the lowest rate of study is 50%. The position includes departmental duties up to 20% of full time, spread over the entire period of appointment. The period of appointment is extended in accordance with departmental duties executed.

Eligibility and selection

General as well as specific entry requirements have to be met for admittance to the PhD programme. General entry requirements are fulfilled by a person who has earned a master’s degree and at least 240 ECTS credits of which at least 60 ECTS cr. are studies at master’s level, or who in some other way in Sweden or abroad has acquired largely equivalent knowledge.

Specific entry requirements to the PhD programme in Working Life Science are fulfilled by a person who has earned a master’s degree (60 ECTS cr.) and who wrote a bachelor or master thesis (for a 60 or 120-credit Master’s degree) focusing on working life issues.

Good oral and written skills in Swedish and English are valued.

Independent essays and degree projects will be particularly significant when applications are assessed.

The departmental duties of doctoral students are executed as part of the discipline’s bachelor-level teaching, particularly in the Human Resource Management and Working Life programme. Teaching duties may also include commissioned courses offered by the discipline. The teaching is mainly in Swedish.

Admission 

The successful applicant is admitted to the PhD programme after individual assessment of their ability to complete the programme successfully. The starting date is as soon as possible, as per agreement. The position in based in Karlstad. 2018-03-02

Application

Applications are submitted electronically and should include:

• CV

• Undergraduate and master-level essays and degree projects for consideration

• Other academic texts demonstrating the applicant’s capability to complete the PhD programme successfully, if applicable

• A plan for the doctoral thesis project (max. 6 pages)

• A brief account (1 000 words) of the applicant’s interest in the position and their main areas of interest for the PhD project.

REK2018/53

Contact:

Ann Bergman, professor, ann.bergman@kau.se054-700 15 24

Robert MacKenzie, professor, robert@mackenzie@kau 054-700 1500

Martin Löfgren, head of school 054- 700 1975

Thomas Bragefors, SACO union representative 054-700 1714

Denita Gustavsson, OFR 054-700 1434

Last application date 2018-04-03

12th March 2018

Workers in the Modern Economy- Aspects of Flexibility – Call for Papers

Deadline for abstracts: 28 March 2018. Contributions invited from all disciplines. 

8th March 2018

Research Studentship on Climate Change, Labour and Work at Westminster Business School, University of Westminster

Research Studentship on Climate Change, Labour and Work at Westminster Business School, University of Westminster

Three years, full time  

£16,000 annual stipend plus fee waiver

 A full-time University of Westminster PhD Studentship is available in the Centre for the Study of the Production of the Built Environment (ProBE) starting in September 2018. This PhD studentship is part of ProBE’s programme of research on Climate Change and Work, conducted in partnership with the York University, Toronto, funded by theCanadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), led by Professor Carla Lipsig Mummé and entitled Adapting Canadian Work and Workplaces, an international perspective (ACW). The programme explores the role of work and global warming and the role of organised workers as a force for adaptation. ProBE is responsible for the international dimension, with projects on green transition strategies and worker agency in Europe and the US, as well as in the built environment. The applicant is expected to have broad knowledge of the field and some experience of quantitative and qualitative research.

The student will be asked to do 6 hours of work per week as a research assistant to support ProBE’s ACW research and enhance REF 2020 submission. There may also be opportunities for exchange visits to Canada.

Eligible candidates will hold at least an upper second class honours degree and a Master’s degree. Candidates whose secondary level education has not been conducted in the medium of English should also demonstrate evidence of appropriate English language proficiency, normally defined as 6.5 in IELTS (with not less than 6.0 in any of the individual elements).

The Studentship consists of a full fee waiver at the Home Fee Rate of £5000 and a stipend of £16,000 per annum over three years of PhD study. The Studentship is open to Home and Overseas applicants, but overseas applicants must be aware that they will need to cover the difference between the Home and Overseas fee (Currently £8000 per year).

The closing date for applications is Monday, 14^th May 2018

For further information on how to apply, please visit:https://www.westminster.ac.uk/courses/research-degrees/research-areas/business/how-to-apply

When applying please ensure that you quote ‘WBS/ProBE Studentship’

Prospective candidates wishing to discuss an application informally should contact Professor Linda Clarke: clarkel@wmin.ac.uk

6th March 2018

BUIRA statement of support for the UCU strike

BUIRA statement of support for the UCU strike

As we see this week begin with a continuation of industrial action, we send out a statement of continuing support to all of our members and colleagues involved in this historic  dispute.  We also want to extend thanks to all of our students who have stood with our colleagues in solidarity.  Everyone has demonstrated an unprecedented commitment to the action and the continuing efforts to defend the status quo on our pensions has been incredible.

We are at a very critical moment in this dispute as the UCU and UUK meet with ACAS to hold a facilitated discussion about the situation. We hope this leads to a clear proposal for a durable solution to the pension problem by the USS and the Pensions Regulator. 

Jo McBride on behalf of the BUIRA stewardship

5th March 2018

Manchester Industrial Relations Society Meeting - The Impact of Brexit on Equality Law

Manchester Industrial Relations Society Meeting

The Impact of Brexit on Equality Law

Speaker: Professor Sandra Fredman 

Rhodes Professor of the Laws of the British Commonwealth and the United States

Pembroke College, University of Oxford

http://www.mirs.org.uk/index.html

Thursday 12 April 6pm
Lecture Theatre G33, Ground Floor
Manchester Metropolitan University Business School
All Saints, Oxford Road (near Oxford Road railway station), Manchester M15 6BH
Map:  http://www.mmu.ac.uk/travel/allsaints/

Equality rights in the UK have been intimately connected to the EU, not only for their impetus but also for their continued content and strength. Unlike other jurisdictions, the right to equality in the UK is not protected by a constitutional bill of rights that would limit the extent to which equality could be eroded or removed by Parliamentary legislation. Prior to Brexit, EU law has performed a similar function to a constitutional guarantee. However, after Brexit, and the consequent removal of binding force EU law, there will be no obstacle to Parliament repealing or undermining the fundamental right to equality, currently largely contained in the Equality Act 2010 (EA).

Even more concerning are proposed powers to be given to the executive to amend primary legislation without full Parliamentary scrutiny (so-called Henry VIII clauses), which could include the power to amend aspects of equality law without full Parliamentary safeguards. Moreover, the Withdrawal Bill specifically states that the EU Charter on Fundamental Rights will no longer be part of domestic law after exit day. Professor Sandra Fredman will consider both the impact of Brexit on equality law, and the ways in which equality law post Brexit can be protected and promoted.

4th March 2018

University of Manchester's Work & Equalities Institute Research Seminar: "National approaches to innovation: Robotics and the implications for work"

University of Manchester

Work & Equalities Institute (WEI)

Research Seminar

National approaches to innovation: Robotics and the implications for work

Professor Caroline Lloyd(Cardiff University)

Wednesday 21^th March 2018

15:30 - 17:00 Hrs (coffee and tea at 15:15)

Alliance Manchester Business School East, Room B4

Abstract

The view that robots and artificial intelligence (RAI) are transforming work in unprecedented ways is attracting increasing attention, embodied in terms such as the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the Second Machine Age (Brynjolfsson and McAfee, 2014, Ford 2015). This seminar aims to contribute to debates about the extent of national differences in the diffusion of RAI and the way it is implemented and used within the workplace. It adopts an approach that considers the social and institutional complexity of ‘national systems’ of innovation (eg. Freeman 1982, Lundvall 1999) and the role of institutions, the state and the social partners in shaping the diffusion of technologies. Taking Norway and the UK as examples of contrasting models of capitalism, the seminar uses key informant interviews to exam two main questions. First, are there national differences in the way that public policy and institutional arrangements are developing to support and shape innovation in RAI and its diffusion? Second, are there different expectations in relation to the pace of change, and the likely consequences for employment and skills? These questions feed into debates about what can be done to shape the way technology is used and how potential benefits are distributed.

About the speaker

Caroline Lloyd is Professor at the School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University. Her research focuses on the relationship between product markets, labour markets, work organisation and skills. She has written widely on issues related to the political economy of skill and low wage work. She co-edited Low-Wage Work in the United Kingdom and recently published a comparative study of work organisation in the service sector; Skills in the Age of Overqualification: Comparing Service Sector Work in Europe (with J. Payne). She is currently working on a British Academy-funded project on the impact of robotics on work and skills in the UK and Norway.

3rd March 2018

Vacancies at the University of Sheffield

Sheffield University Management School has seeking to appoint a Lecturer in Employment Relations, a Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in HRM/OB, a Chair in Organisational Studies and a Doctoral Associate in Organisational Studies. Further information is available at https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/jobs 

2nd March 2018

PhD position in Working Life Science

PhD position in Working Life Science

Karlstad University / Fakulteten för humaniora och samhällsvetenskap / Handelshögskolan

Karlstad University takes pride in combining active external cooperation with academic excellence.

Karlstad University has around 16 000 students and a staff of over 1 200 members. Democratic principles, equality and diversity are cornerstones of the University. We value the enriching presence of diverse backgrounds and competencies among students and staff.

Description

Working Life Science is a cross-disciplinary subject that includes many different approaches to work and working life. Working Life Science studies, for example, working conditions, work organisations, and leadership, and considers the labor market issues from national and international perspectives. Issues of power and influence, industrial relations, segregation patterns at workplaces and on the Labor market, work environment, work-life balance, work and identity, migration, restructuring, casualization, and work and technology are some of the areas studied. The discipline Working Life Science comprises around fifteen staff members, including three professors, an associate professor, four senior lecturers and around ten doctoral students.

This is a fixed-term position for four years at full time. Unless there are special circumstances, this is a full-time position, and the lowest rate of study is 50%. The position includes departmental duties up to 20% of full time, spread over the entire period of appointment. The period of appointment is extended in accordance with departmental duties executed.

Eligibility and selection

General as well as specific entry requirements have to be met for admittance to the PhD programme.

General entry requirements are fulfilled by a person who has earned a master’s degree and at least 240 ECTS credits of which at least 60 ECTS cr. are studies at master’s level, or who in some other way in Sweden or abroad has acquired largely equivalent knowledge.

Specific entry requirements to the PhD programme in Working Life Science are fulfilled by a person who has earned a master’s degree (60 ECTS cr.) and who wrote a bachelor or master thesis (for a 60 or 120-credit Master’s degree) focusing on working life issues.

Good oral and written skills in Swedish and English are valued.

Independent essays and degree projects will be particularly significant when applications are assessed.

The departmental duties of doctoral students are executed as part of the discipline’s bachelor-level teaching, particularly in the Human Resource Management and Working Life programme. Teaching duties may also include commissioned courses offered by the discipline. The teaching is mainly in

Swedish.

Admission

The successful applicant is admitted to the PhD programme after individual assessment of their ability to complete the programme successfully. The starting date is as soon as possible, as per agreement. The position in based in Karlstad.

Application

Applications are submitted electronically and should include:

• CV
• Undergraduate and master-level essays and degree projects for consideration
• Other academic texts demonstrating the applicant’s capability to complete the PhD programme successfully, if applicable
• A plan for the doctoral thesis project (max. 6 pages)
• A brief account (1 000 words) of the applicant’s interest in the position and their main areas of interest for the PhD project.

REK2018/53

Contact:

Ann Bergman, professor, ann.bergman@kau.se 054-700 15 24
Robert MacKenzie, professor, robert@mackenzie@kau 054-700 1500
Martin Löfgren, prefekt 054- 700 1975

Thomas Bragefors, SACO 054-700 1714

Denita Gustavsson, OFR 054-700 1434

Last application date 2018-04-03

2nd March 2018

Tackling the gender pay gap

The Work & Employment Research Unit and the Diversity Interest Group have organised a joint seminar on tackling the gender pay gap.

Date: Wednesday, 21^st March 2018

Time: 15:00-18:00

Location: Hamilton House, 15 Park Vista, Park Vista, Greenwich, SE10 9LZ.

Registration: Please email Business School Events with your name, job title and organisation to attend.

For more information: our webpage

This seminar will look at how employers are responding to the new governmental reporting requirements and at new research from the IES on success in tackling the issue. We are delighted to have three speakers presenting:

·         Dr Duncan Brown

·         Jisha Hales 

·         Lara Plaxton

Dr Duncan Brown heads the HR work at the Institute for Employment Studies. Duncan’s work covers pay and HR research. He has more than 30 years’ experience in pay and HR management, working for major consultancies such as Towers Perrin and Aon Hewitt, as well as 5 years as director of research and policy at CIPD

Jisha Hales is the policy lead for gender pay gap reporting in the public sector and the public sector equality duty. She is a member of the Equality Framework Team in the Government Equalities Office. The Government Equalities Office leads work on policy relating to women, sexual orientation and transgender equality. 

Lara Plaxton has over 14 years’ experience working within HR and heads up the HR function in the UK at FDM Group, a global IT Services provider. FDM was the 6^th employer to register its gender pay gap data and has been a driving force in encouraging others to adopt the new legislation early.

1st March 2018

Event: TUC 150th Anniversary Conference

TUC 150^th Anniversary Conference: Retrospect and Prospects

in conjunction with the Manchester Industrial Society

Mechanics Institute, Princess Street, Manchester

Friday 1 June 10am-6.30pm

Timetable

9am – 10am: Registration

10am: Opening remarks

10.15 – 11.30: Panel Session1chaired by Lynne Morris, UNISON/TUC North West Chair

The role of the TUC in significant disputes

• Professor Ralph Darlington Professor of Employment Relations, University of Salford,

and secretary of Manchester Industrial Relations Society

• Professor John Kelly, Professor of Industrial Relations, Birkbeck, University of London

• trade union speaker tbc

11.30 – 12.45: Panel session 2 Chaired by Lynn Collins, TUC North West

TUC Relations with Labour in Government and opposition

• Sarah Veale, former Head of Equality and Employment Rights, TUC

• Keith Ewing – Professor of Public Law, King’s College London

• John McDonnell MP

12.45 – 1.45: Lunch

1.45 – 3.00: Panel Session 3 chaired by Paula Wood, PCS/TUC North West

TUC Framing Laws and Changing Laws

• John Hendy QC

• Stephen Cavalier, Chief Executive, Thompsons solicitors

• Hannah Reed, Senior Employment Rights Officer TUC

3.00 – 4.15: Panel session 4 chaired by Peter Middleman NEU/TUC North West

The Organising Academy and beyond

• Melanie Simms, Professor of Work and Employment, University of Glasgow

• Sally Hunt – TUC President and UCU General Secretary

• Paul Nowak – TUC Deputy General Secretary

4.15 – 6.30pm: Closing Remarks followed by a Beer and sandwiches reception,

hosted by Thompsons Solicitors

Registration for the conference costs £10 which includes copies of presentations, lunch and

closing reception. A number of student places will be made available at a reduced rate of £5.

You can register via the Eventbrite link:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/tuc150-retrospects-and-prospects-tickets-42781768421

1st March 2018

Alert: Early-bird registration for the ILERA 2018 world congress ends soon

Dear Colleagues,

This is to alert you that the early-bird registration for the International Labour and Employment Relations Association (ILERA) 2018 world congress ends soon – see the notice below.  

The hosts selected the last week of July for this world congress so that the dates should not create a conflict for most academics, and that this is vacation time for many. This ILERA world congress has rec’d a record number of submissions. The president of ILERA, Dong-One Kim and his team have worked to make this a very interesting world congress, both substantively and socially. Also, they have tried to keep costs down, in particular, the costs for students.

 BUIRA is a founder member of ILERA. A range of BUIRA members will be presenting papers there and have already registered. Although the deadline for submissions of full papers has passed, there may still be possibilities to present a paper in one of the many study groups, if you wish. These groups are less formal than the core world congress; they are semi-autonomous and organise their own programs; for more info. see:  http://www.ilera2018.org/program/study_group.html

This is also a great opportunity to visit South Korea and perhaps other parts of Asia and/or Australia or New Zealand too….

26th February 2018

Call for evidence: trade unions in the modern labour market

Commission on Economic Justice report on trade unions and the modern labour market

The IPPR Commission on Economic Justice is seeking evidence for a project on trade unions in the modern labour market. This project will produce a policy report to stimulate wider debate on the topic and will contribute to the Commission’s final report.

The Commission is seeking to understand the causes of the significant decline in union membership and collective bargaining since 1979, and the impact this decline has had on the UK economy and labour market. We will seek out best practice in the movement, and highlight where trade unions have innovated to adapt to a changing labour market. The project will set out what role trade unions could play in the labour market in the future, and outline changes that may be necessary to support this.

The closing date for submissions is 30 March 2018. Please send your comments, by this date (or sooner), to Joe Dromey, Senior Research Fellow at evidence@ippr.org, with the subject line ‘Trade unions’. If you will have material that is only available to send after the closing date we would still be pleased to receive it, though may not be able to use it in our initial research.

23rd February 2018

Critical realism in practice: Applications in management and organisation studies

Critical realism in practice: Applications in management and organisation studies

11^th May 2018, 9.30am-4.30pm, Partners Room

Newcastle University Business School

Keynote speakers

Dr Scott Hurrell (University of Glasgow)

Prof Monder Ram (University of Birmingham)

Prof Steve Vincent (Newcastle University)

Call for papers

Critical realism (CR) is an increasingly prominent meta-theory in management and organisational studies, but practical illustrations of how CR can be applied in research practice are still relatively infrequent. Our one-day symposium seeks to bring together postgraduate and early-career researchers with interests in the sociology of work, employment relations, careers, professions, organisations and cognate research areas, and learn about the variety of ways and contexts in which CR can be applied in empirical research.

This event seeks to provide an open, imaginative and supportive forum to present and discuss ideas, receive advice from the leading CR experts, and meet other scholars with similar research interests. Therefore, we are pleased to invite submissions of abstracts (up to 250 words) from postgraduate and early-career researchers applying (or considering opportunities to apply) CR to study issues relevant to management and organization studies. ‘Work in progress’ submissions are welcome. Potential areas to present on include (but are not limited to):

• skills and skill formation systems;
• labour markets;
• employment relationship;
• identity;
• workforce diversity;
• careers;
• entrepreneurship.

Abstract submission deadline: April 15^th 2018

Please submit your abstracts to: Toma Pustelnikovaite (tp27@st-andrews.ac.uk)

Lunch and refreshments will be provided. Please specify dietary requirements or accessibility needs at the time of booking. Attendance without presenting at the symposium is also welcome.

Delegate rates: BSA Member Registration £5, Non-Member Registration £15.

For conference and academic enquiries please contact Andrew Kozhevnikov (a.kozhevnikov@newcastle.ac.uk)

22nd February 2018

Fourth Bi-Annual Fairness at Work Conference - 10-11 Sept 2018, Work & Equalities Institute, University of Manchester [DEADLINE EXTENDED]

The University of Manchester

Work & Equalities Institute (WEI)

Fourth Bi-Annual Fairness at Work Conference

'Justice at Work: Challenges and Possibilities’

Date: 10th & 11th September 2018

Venue: The University of Manchester

CALL FOR PAPERS

Deadline for abstracts: 31st of March 

Building on the three previous Fairness at Work Conferences at the University of Manchester (in 2012, 2014, and 2016), the 2018 conference aims to bring together academics and practitioners to discuss strategic issues on the subject of justice and fairness at work. The last two years have seen a major shift in the political environment and an emergence of a politics of national insularity. Yet at the same time major strides have been made in raising awareness and support for living wage campaigns and improving workplace justice.   The conference aims to discuss developments in our understandings of the impact of technological changes (e.g. the gig economy), the changing experiences of work amongst groups of vulnerable workers (e.g. younger workers), the impact of an increasingly hostile context on notions of justice and fairness at the workplace (e.g. a greater challenge to minority rights) and the responses and roles of trade unions and other civil society organisations in dealing with such challenges.

The conference is being held in Manchester at the same time as the 150^th Annual Conference of the UK’s Trade Unions Congress and will organise sessions linked to the TUC conference themes, with invited speakers and activities focused on the future of trade unions and worker regulation and rights.  The TUC was founded in Manchester in 1868 and the WEI Fairness at Work conference will include social and cultural activities linked to the labour history and struggles for equality of the city. 

Papers are invited on these developments in the areas of fair treatment at work, diversity and equality, stress and well-being, dignity at work, employment regulation, worker participation, trade unionism, technology and work, and key elements of employment relations such as pay, pensions and working time.

Cost: £200 Waged (£50 unwaged): includes all food and drink plus the conference dinner

Abstract submission: Please email 500-word abstracts or 1000-word for sessionsby 31^st  March 2018 tofairwrcconferences@mbs.ac.uk 

About the Work & Equalities Institute: The Work & Equalities Institute brings together the European Work and Employment Research Centre and Fairness at Work Research Centre with expertise across human resource management, industrial relations, labour economics, organisational psychology, and employment law. The team has a track record, built over more than twenty five years, of informing the evidence-base and policy agenda of the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the United Nations’ International Labour Organisation, as well as national organisations such as the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and others. WEI’s research is being used in knowledge exchange, dialogue and debate with key stakeholders and policy makers, and makes informed contributions to policy formation and practice.https://www.mbs.ac.uk/research/centres-and-institutes/work-and-equalities-institute/

20th February 2018

Call for Papers - special issue on ‘ Beyond the Department: HRM as a Shared Function’, Baltic Journal of Management

The call for papers can be accessed here:

 http://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/products/journals/call_for_papers.htm?id=7688 . 

16th February 2018

ILERA Announcement - Online course on Shaping the Future of Work

Shaping the Future of Work

Explore ways to improve job opportunities and develop a personal plan for lifelong career success

This Spring Thomas Kochan, previous ILERA President will offer his free eight-week online course, 15.662x: 
Shaping the Future of Work, for the third time since 2015.

The goal of this course is to explore and develop plans of action for improving the job and career opportunities for today and tomorrow’s workforce. It also help students understand and better address the deep divisions and inequalities in societies that threaten the future of our economies and democracies. The course will allow for individuals from all across the globe to create a better future by building a stronger network of businesses, employees, labor organizations, and their communities.

“We use the metaphor of “Building a New Social Contract” to organize the task we face and the options we might consider, while shaping the future trajectory of employment. Together we will learn how business, education, labor, government, and the workforce can work together to produce more good jobs and careers, thriving businesses and economies and in doing so help to close the deep divisions and address the frustrations that are all too apparent in our society.”

“I would like to invite you, your students, and your colleagues to take part in the class. In order to get a better sense of the course layout, you can watch the introduction piece here. If you have any further questions, please feel free to reach out to us. We would love to have you on board and share the information with your potentially interested students. “

Thomas Kochan and 15.662x Course Team

Starts on 20 March 2018 - Enrol here

16th February 2018

Green Jobs and Sustainability

Seminar jointly organised by the ‘Alternative Organisations and Transformative Practices’ and the ‘Sustainable Development’ clusters

Date and time: 22^nd of March 2018, 13.15-15.00

Location: C205, College Building, Middlesex University, The Burroughs, London NW4 4BT

Tickets: Entry is free and open to all. Please register here to reserve your place: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/green-jobs-and-sustainability-tickets-42751809814

***Refreshments will be served***

Saving and providing low-carbon energy are great challenges of our times, as the by-products of combustion of oil, gas, coal and other materials contribute to climate change, air-pollution, natural disasters, and diseases. Low-carbon housing and energy generation are essential for the survival of life on this planet. Both require NEW technology and NEW ways of working.

After some dire post-financial and economic crisis years, policy makers and academics are excited about the opportunities for creating employment and stimulating European economies provided by the rising awareness of the negative impact of environmental pollution and climate change. Climate change and how societies engage in technological and social innovation are questions of social, ecological and economic sustainability. In this seminar, we ask

How can the turn to energy saving and low-carbon energy generation contribute to more and better employment across European economies?

We invite academics and PhD students from various disciplines to join us for a lively exchange of ideas. 

Speakers

Prof Linda Clarke (Professor of European Industrial Relations in the Westminster Business School) and Dr. Melahat Sahin-Dikmen (Research Fellow at the Centre for the Study of the Production of the Built Environment (ProBE), Westminster Business School) on

'Challenges for vocational education and training for low energy construction in Europe: divergent contexts, approaches and practices'

Dr Robert Gross (Reader in Energy Policy and Technology and Director of the Centre for Energy Policy and Technology (ICEPT) at Imperial College London) on

'Low carbon jobs, what is the evidence? The UKERC systematic review'

Dr Lisa Schulte (Lecturer in HRM and Organisational Behaviour, Middlesex University) (Initiator of this seminar) on

'Job Quality in the Danish, English and German Offshore Wind Turbine Industry'

Chair: Dr Anne Daguerre (Associate Professor in Work Employment and Welfare, Middlesex University)

Sponsor: Research Facilitation Funding Grant – Middlesex University Business School

16th February 2018

Call for Papers: HR Division International Conference (HRIC), Dublin 2019

16th February 2018

University of Manchester's Work & Equalities Institute Research Seminar: "Strategies for flexibility in a disconnected world"

University of Manchester

Work & Equalities Institute (WEI)

Research Seminar

Strategies for flexibility in a disconnected world

Wednesday 21^th February 2018

15:30 - 17:00 Hrs (coffee and tea at 15:15)

Alliance Manchester Business School East, Room B5

Speaker:        Professor Stephen Procter, Newcastle University Business School

Discussants:  Dr Andrew Smith, Bradford University

                      Professor Jill Rubery, Work & Equalities Institute, University of Manchester

Abstract

This paper makes connections between three things: financialisation, flexibility and strategic HRM. It is argued first of all that financialisation should be understood as an intensification of long-standing pressures on organizations. Picking up on themes of flexibility first developed twenty years ago in the model of the ‘new flexible firm’, the impact of financialisation on the structural flexibility of large UK organizations is examined. Consideration of financialisation also provides a link to the disconnected capitalism thesis, with its implications for strategic HRM. While recognising the strength of the thesis, it is argued that there are also other ways of explaining HRM’s failure to deliver on its promises. The third side of our triangle links flexibility with strategic HRM, and draws on research that looks at whether flexibility and fit should be seen as complements or as substitutes for each other. This is looked at in relation to financialisation, in an attempt to provide a framework in which current developments can be located in their wider and more long-term context.

About the Speaker

Professor Stephen Procter is Alcan Chair of Management at Newcastle University Business School. His research has focused on the contemporary restructuring of work, exploring teams and teamworking as central elements of this restructuring. His focus on teamworking developed out of earlier work on workplace flexibility, which dominated debates on restructuring in the early 1990s. In response to these debates, his work put forward the model of the new flexible firm as a means of understanding contemporary developments, which linked workforce flexibility with broader operational and organizational concerns. His more recent research has extended these ideas to provide an understanding of ‘lean’ teamworking, presenting an alternative to the interpretation based simply on work intensification.

About the Discussants

Dr Andrew Smith is Senior Lecturer in Human Resource Management and Employment Relations at Bradford University School of Management.  Prior to entering academia as a mature student he worked in the civil service and was a trade union representative for the CPSA and PCS unions.  His research interests are in the experiences of work, employment change and the complexities and challenges of work-life ‘balance’. He has published in the journals ‘Work, Employment and Society’, ‘New Technology, Work and Employment’ and the ‘Industrial Relations Journal’.  Andrew is currently working with Dr Jo McBride (Newcastle University) on a new project critically examining the working lives of low-paid workers in multiple legitimate employment.

Professor Jill Rubery has worked at Manchester since 1989, first at the Manchester School of Management at UMIST and since 2004 in Alliance Manchester Business School. She previously worked at the Department of Applied Economics at Cambridge University. Professor Rubery is the Director of the Work and Equalities Institute at Alliance Manchester Business School. She was previously Deputy Director of Alliance Manchester Business School (2007-2013) and head of the People, Management and Organisation Division (2004-2009). In 2006 she was elected a fellow of the British Academy and an emeritus fellow of Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge.

16th February 2018

Event - Labour Abuse

Labour Abuse

Dr Roberto Pedersini (University of Milan) Coping with fraudulent work in the European Union

Nick Clark (Middlesex University) One law for the rich… Case studies from the Unpaid Britain project

Friday 23 February 2018, 10.30am – 12.30pm, followed by buffet lunch 

University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS

(opposite Madame Tussauds and nearly opposite Baker Street tube)
Room CG44

For further details and to reserve a place, contact Linda Clarke (clarkel@wmin.ac.uk)

This regular monthly seminar is focused on the 

Roberto Pedersini presents the main findings of a study carried out on behalf of the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound) on the different types and diffusion of fraudulent work in the European Union and the responses that public authorities and social partners have developed to address the challenges posed. Three forms of contracting work are most affected by fraudulent uses - self-employment, fixed-term work and the posting of workers, whilst the social partners mainly operate to increase commitment to compliance. Nick Clark will report on the Unpaid Britain project, examining the phenomenon of unpaid wages, in particular in the London labour market. While secondary data analysis and primary research on Employment Tribunal judgements have revealed much, a series of case studies have provided fascinating insights into this most fundamental breach of the work contract.

Roberto Pedersini is Associate Professor of Economic sociology at the Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy. His current research interests concern labour market regulation and policies and industrial and employment relations at both national and international level. He has collaborated in research projects with the International Labour Office, the European Commission and the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions and was the Chief Editor of the 2014 edition of the biennial European Commission’s Industrial Relations in Europe report. His recent publications include: Exploring the fraudulent contracting of work in the European Union (2016, with Massimo Pallini); What Kind of Europeanization? How EMU is Changing National Industrial Relations in Europe (2015, with Lorenzo Bordogna); Coping with the crisis in Italy: Employment relations and social dialogue amid recession (2014, with Marino Regini).

Nick Clark, Research Fellow at Middlesex University Business School has a background in practice, having worked in trade union research and policy environments for 26 years before joining the Working Lives Research Institute in 2009, moving on to Middlesex University in 2015. His academic research has built on practical knowledge of wage bargaining, labour markets, migrant workers and employment rights, using mixed methods of documentary and legal case research, primary and secondary data analysis, and interview. 

This 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 this event. These meetings can be full though so, if you would like to attend and to help forecast catering provision, please Contact: Professor Linda Clarke,  clarkel@wmin.ac.uk or 020350 66528

9th February 2018

Role(s) available - BUIRA PhD Network Facilitators

9th February 2018

Fully Funded Research Studentships Available

Middlesex University Business School is offering 4 fully funded research studentships for 2018. Among areas of study that are offered, the following may be of interest for BUIRA members

• Behavioural economics
• Gender and diversity in business and the workplace
• Global employment relations
• International business and organisations
• Social enterprise, corporate social responsibility and sustainable development

Application deadline: Friday 16 March 2018, 12.00pm

Interviews: Friday 20 April 2018

Studentship start date: Monday 24 September 2018

More details and application:

http://www.mdx.ac.uk/courses/research/research-studentships

9th February 2018

9th February 2018

Brexit and the Future of Employment Rights’ – Joint MIRS/ILS meeting

Brexit and the Future of Employment Rights

Joint meeting of the Manchester Industrial Relations Society (MIRS)

and Industrial Law Society (ILS)

Speakers: Professor Catherin Barnard (Professor of EU Law and Employment Law, Trinity College, University of Cambridge)

Professor Keith Ewing (Professor of Law, King’s College, London)

http://www.mirs.org.uk/index.html

Thursday 1 March 6pm
Lecture Theatre G33, Ground Floor
Manchester Metropolitan University Business School
All Saints, Oxford Road (near Oxford Road railway station), Manchester M15 6BH
Map:  http://www.mmu.ac.uk/travel/allsaints/

The Brexit vote and its aftermath – Cameron’s fall, May’s catastrophic snap election, the internal divisions between ‘remainers’, ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ Brexiters, and the prospect of crashing out of the European Union without a deal on 29 March 2019 – have thrust Britain into a period of serious political instability. In the process, the shadow of the vote to leave the EU has thrown the future of employment law into uncertainty, with the potential for the erosion of workers’ rights, the overturning of cases won on EU-derived principles, and the pressure to join a race to the bottom on labour law when negotiating new international trade deals. And what about remedies and the enforcement of those rights with access to the European Court of Justice denied? Professors Catherine Barnard and Keith Ewing will provide a lively discussion of these and other Brexit related challenges, and will advance proposals for better employment law.

For further details of the Manchester Industrial Relations Society see:

MIRS Secretary: Professor Ralph Darlington r.r.darlington@salford.ac.uk

MIRS website: www.mirs.org.uk and Twitter: @ManchesterIRS

9th February 2018

Event - Machines & Measure

Hosted by University of Leicester School of Business, Centre for Philosophy and Political Economy (CPPE) & Conference of Socialist Economists (CSE) South Group

Friday 16^th February

11.30 Registration

12.00– 17.30 Talks, discussions

Location: Leicester Creative Business Depot A five minute walk from the train station, this is a great location in Leicester’s cultural quarter.

Eventbrite: REGISTER

Please only register if you intend to come.

Please email me for any other information at pvm.doc@gmail.com and/or from 02/01/18 pm358@le.ac.uk

How are machines being used in contemporary capitalism to perpetuate control and to intensify power relations at work? Theorizing how this occurs through discussions about the physical machine, the calculation machine and the social machine, this workshop re-visits questions of the incorporation and absorption of workers as appendages within the machine as Marx identified as well as new methods to numerate without, necessarily, remuneration. Speakers ask to what extent control is underway via intensified methods to capture labour power, including affective and emotional labour; and will identify how calculation and numeration serve to abstract labour through prediction, prescription, monitoring and tracking; on the streets, in homes, offices and factories. The ‘black box’ argument currently fashionable in debates, where digitalized management methods are a(e)ffectively obscured, is challenged, by identifying precisely how algorithmic decisionmaking, automation and machine learning processes operate to control workers and by theorizing the implications of measure inside human/machine experiences of relations of production.

Kendra Briken (University of Strathclyde) ‘Welcome within the machine. Human-machine relations on the shop floor’

Frank Engster (Helle Panke, Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung) ‘Measure Machine Money’

Alessandro Gandini (King’s College, London) ‘Labour Process Theory and the Gig Economy’

Simon Joyce (Leeds University) ‘Digitalized Management Methods. Black Box or Hidden Abode?’

Adrian Mengay (Friedrich Schiller University Jena) ‘Digitalization of work and heteronomy’

Phoebe Moore (University of Leicester) ‘Quantification of A(e)ffective Labour for Change Management’

PAPER ABSTRACTS 

Welcome within the machine. Human-machine relations on the shop floor.

Kendra Briken (University of Strathclyde)

This paper will discuss new technologies that lead to qualitatively new human-machine relations (data gloves, co-bots, data glasses, handheld scanner) used on the shop floor in manufacturing (in a broad sense, encompassing also work in fulfilment centres). Based on the (few) existing empirical studies as well as on company and consultancy reports, the aim is to re-visit the incorporation and absorption of the human worker as a mere appendage within the machine as described by Marx. With machines the more and more said to be involved in problem solving by communicating with each other, the question is: What role for the human? Opposed to the debates about the robots taking over jobs, the paper argues that we will instead see a (longer) transition phase where workers might end up in becoming a new appendage in the workplace. Not being off work but also no longer controlling the machines. The paper wants to overcome the well-known debates about de- and upskilling by using the works of i.e. Donna Haraway to focus on the connexion between the body and the machines.

Measure Machine Money.

Frank Engster (Helle Panke, Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung)

In capitalisms, machines become specific capitalist machines simply because, as e.g. Heidegger, Simondon or Deleuze and Guattari have shown, we must understand the machine from their context: from their non-technical essence, from their connection with other machines, and from the essence of the machinic. This context, first of all and in the last instance, is the relation with the capitalist economy. This determination by capitalist economy can be shown for three different machines: the physical machine, the calculation machine and the social machine: money. What all three have in common and almost defines them as machines is that all three quantify. The classical physical machine quantifies the relation of nature, the calculation machine quantifies information and meaning, and the money machine quantifies social relations.

Labour Process Theory and the Gig Economy.

Alessandro Gandini (King’s College, London)

This article aims to develop a labour process theory approach to address the forms of labour increasingly often referred to as a ‘gig economy’. Supported by empirical illustrations from existing research, the article discusses the notions of ‘point of production’, emotional labour and control in the ‘gig economy’, to argue that labour process theory offers a unique set of tools to observe the way in which labour-power comes to be transformed in a commodity in a context where the encounter between supply and demand of work is mediated by a digital platform. This is characterised by a subjection of social relations to processes of valorisation centred on data and metrics – particularly feedback, ranking and rating systems – that serve purposes of managerialisation and organisation of work in a context where managers and workers are not physically co-present.

Black Box or Hidden Abode: Control and Resistance in Digitalized Management.

Phoebe Moore, University of Leicester and Simon Joyce, Leeds University

Digitalized management methods (DMM) are becoming widespread with the use of big data and algorithmic distribution of work, the use of people analytics, bogus self-employment and an ‘always on’ culture of work and boundary permeability, in the streets and in homes as well as factories and offices. Resistance to these methods has been relatively fast to emerge, however, both at the individual informal level, or with ‘everyday forms of resistance’ a la de Certeau, and in the formal collective responses which are now being seen in trade union responses internationally. In that light, the paper first outlines the control and resistance model seen in labour process research. Secondly, we outline the environments where digitalization is occurring and the DMM seen therein. Peppered with empirical evidence obtained by the current authors, we note the significance of the methods being applied and how, precisely, they work to abstract labour via quantification. We claim that the ‘blackbox’ response is a mythology that obscures power relations underpinning the control aspects of DMM, where many techniques seen in DMM reflect age-old approaches. Thirdly, we outline where resistance is emerging. We conclude that while there has been significant uptake in DMM in several sectors in ways that make it look like we are dealing a nearly universal ‘uberized’ work paradigm that has begun to infiltrate labour markets across the world, resistance emerging and their integral negotiations indicate that this trend is not a fait accompli. Rather, it is to be seen to what extent digitalized methods will become hegemonic.

Digitalization of work and heteronomy

Adrian Mengay (Friedrich Schiller University Jena)

This paper involves, firstly, theoretical remarks, and then a discussion of the German Reference Architectural Model Industrie 4.0 (RAMI 4.0). The digitalization of work is changing the workplace, the medium, relations and content of work. This it is affecting the autonomy of employees. The objective is first to discuss how, why und under which conditions digitalization of work affects autonomy and secondly to understand how it can be used  as a management tool for the extension of heteronomy and the restructuring of work. The digitization of information and processes creates digital data which enables the application of algorithm based forms of processing, measurement, evaluation and benchmarking. I will examine how the digitalization of work favours a structuring and standardization of work and will discuss some practical experiences.

Quantification of A(e)ffective Labour for Change Management.

Phoebe Moore (University of Leicester)

Sensory and tracking technologies are being introduced into workplaces in ways Taylor and the Gilbreths could only have imagined. As corporate wellness initiatives proliferate, work design experiments seek to merge wellness with productivity measure and modulate and quantify the affective and emotional labour of resilience that are necessary for surviving the turbulent early days of Industry 4.0, where workers are expected to take symbolic direction from machines. The Quantified Workplace project (QW) where algorithmic devices were used to quantify labour during a period of corporate merger in Rotterdam over the course of one year, demonstrate how affect is measured during a move toward agile systems and thus the seemingly inevitable conditions of transformation and disruption-because machines accelerate and transform, workers must do so likewise. Projects like QW are evidence of capital’s accelerated attempts to capture more areas of work and to facilitate the conversion of labour power into a source of value, using new technologies. Participants’ responses to participation in the project reveal tensions in the labour process when affect is measured in processes of corporate change.

9th February 2018

Special Issue: Human resources and workplace innovations: practices, perspectives and paradigms

This Special Issue is a tribute and dedication to the late Professor Tom Redman

Personnel Review: Volume 46 Issue 7.Special Issue: Human resources and workplace innovations: practices, perspectives and paradigms -- Guest editorial, Greg J. Bamber, Timothy Bartram and Pauline Stanton:http://www.emeraldinsight.com/toc/pr/46/7

HRM and workplace innovations: formulating research questions, Greg J. Bamber, Timothy Bartram, Pauline Stanton (pp. 1216 - 1227)

HRM and innovative work behaviour: a systematic literature review, Anna Bos-Nehles, Maarten Renkema, Maike Janssen (pp. 1228 - 1253)

Disentangling workplace innovation: a systematic literature review, Iryna Prus,Raoul C.D. Nacamulli, Alessandra Lazazzara (pp. 1254 - 1279)

Employee share ownership and organisational performance: a tentative opening of the black box, Keith Whitfield, Andrew Pendleton, Sukanya Sengupta, Katy Huxley (pp. 1280 - 1296)

Why sharing is synergy: The role of decentralized control mechanisms and centralized HR capabilities in creating HR shared service value, Marco Maatman, Jeroen Meijerink (pp. 1297 - 1317)

High-performance work system and employee creativity: The roles of perceived organisational support and devolved management, Guiyao Tang,Bingjie Yu, Fang Lee Cooke, Yang Chen(pp. 1318 - 1334)

Strategic flexibility, innovative HR practices, and firm performance: A moderated mediation model, Lin Xiu,Xin Liang, Zhao Chen, Wei Xu (pp. 1335 - 1357)

Contextual ambidexterity and innovation in healthcare in India: the role of HRM, Ashish Malik, Brendan Boyle,Rebecca Mitchell (pp. 1358 - 1380)

Innovation programs at the workplace for workers with an intellectual disability: Two case studies in large Australian organisations, Hannah Meacham, Jillian Cavanagh, Amie Shaw,Timothy Bartram (pp. 1381 - 1396)

Are new organisations at the cutting edge of employment relations innovation?David Peetz, Olav Muurlink, Keith Townsend, Adrian Wilkinson, Madeleine Brabant (pp. 1397 - 1413)

Independent professionals and the potential for HRM innovation, Tui McKeown, Robyn Cochrane (pp. 1414 - 1433)

Opening the black box: The mediating roles of organisational systems and ambidexterity in the HRM-performance link in public sector organisations, Geoff Plimmer, Jane Bryson, Stephen T.T. Teo(pp. 1434 - 1451)

9th February 2018

Launch of the Work and Equalities Institute

The University of Manchester has created a new Work and Equalities Institute following the merger of the European Work and Employment Research centre and the Fairness at Work Research Centre.

See more about The Work and Equalities Institute here.

You are invited to the launch of The Work and Equalities Institute
on Wednesday 14 March 2018 at The University of Manchester.

The theme of the launch is
Debating the future of work and equalities in the fourth industrial revolution
in the birthplace of the first industrial revolution

You will find further details of the event here.

2nd February 2018

Work and Equalities Seminar series

Work and Equalities Institute, The University of Manchester

Research Seminars 2017-2018, Semester 2

Strategies for Flexibility in a Disconnected World

Professor Stephen Procter, Newcastle University Business School

Discussants:             Dr Andrew Smith, University of Bradford

                                 Professor Jill Rubery, University of Manchester

Wednesday 21^st February 2018

15:30 – 17:00 Hrs (coffee/tea at 15:15)

Alliance Manchester Business School East, Room B5

National approaches to innovation: Robotics and the implications for work

Professor Caroline Lloyd, Cardiff University

Wednesday 21^st March 2018

15:30 – 17:00 Hrs (coffee/tea at 15:15)

Alliance Manchester Business School East, Room B4

Revisiting the ‘Japanization of British Industry’: The Contemporary State of Shop-Steward Organisation in the UK Car Industry

Dr Niall Cullinane, Queen’s University Belfast

Wednesday 18^th April 2018

15:30 – 17:00 Hrs (coffee/tea at 15:15)

Alliance Manchester Business School East, Room B4

2nd February 2018

BUIRA Accounts

2nd February 2018

Call For Papers - BUIRA Conference 2018: The return of politics to employment relations (27 to 29 June 2018)

The call for papers is now open until 16^th February 2018.

Please use template provided below and submit your abstract through the BUIRA website: http://www.buira.org/submit

BUIRA conference abstract template

Title:

Brief outline (100 words):

Methodology (150 words):

Key findings (250 words):

References:

Please upload a Word file using Arial font, 12pt and double-lined spaced - do not include your name or anything that identifies you. 

 BUIRA Conference 2018

The return of politics to employment relations

Middlesex University, London Wednesday 27 to Friday 29 June 2018

Howell (2005) observes that the emergence of the “third system of industrial relations” in the UK – from 1979 - is one that, among the institutional issues, removed employment relations as a high profile political issue in public life.  While the Winter of Discontent made industrial relations the primary political national issue in the 1979 general election, by the time the Employment Relations Bill was being debated in 1998-9 it attracted low key media or even parliamentary attention.  If the neoliberal age has been one which has institutionally sidelined the notion of collective worker representation, it has also been one that has attempted to ideologically individualise the employment relationship into a market transactional one.

In 2017, the situation seems to have changed.  The underlying ideological predisposition that the employment relationship is a consensual voluntary market transaction is a lot less certain among a significant proportion of working people who instead see unfairness and futility.  In the UK, while unemployment is relatively low, ‘underemployment’ and the perceptions of insecurity, precarity, ‘bad jobs’ and inequality are high.  Similar tensions are reported across the developed world.  These changes could be partly the longer-term consequence of the global financial crisis of 2007/8, of global and national austerity or of the way in which globalisation has affected jobs in adjusting the global north to the global south. The politics surrounding the (un)fairness of the system governing work and employment are now acute and are beginning to challenge the assumptions underpinning key institutions governing the system as a whole. 

It is difficult to pin an exact location for this ‘disruption’ but its manifestations are evident.  While workplace collective bargaining remains dormant outside the shrunken domains of public sector and established large employers, the levels of discontent among the ‘unorganised’ are growing. This includes legal and small scale collective challenges to practices associated with the ‘gig economy’ (a prominent theme discussed at BUIRA 2017); and the return of industrial relations policy as a contested ideological agenda at national level politics (with Labour now championing trade union rights and the Conservative government seeming to need to address perceptions of unfairness with a more paternalist reform agenda on issues such as corporate governance and pay inequality.  The Conservatives’ apparent change of direction is of particular interest as it seems to mark an important symbolic break with the cornerstone principle of laissez-faire market individualism that has underpinned government policy since Thatcher in 1979.

Such re-politicisation of work and employment has not just been a UK phenomenon.  The Trump phenomenon in the US, with its rhetoric of protectionism and anti-immigration, has also arguably been based on a populist challenge to the prevailing neoliberal orthodoxy of open markets. .  In France the direction seems to be equal and opposite: the reforming Macron government seems intent on market-based reforms to labour laws more in line with the neoliberal agenda falling out of favour elsewhere.

Although we welcome papers that concern any area of industrial relations, theoretical contributions in relation to the changes we’re observing in the relationship between politics and employment are particularly welcome, as well as papers concerning topics under the following headings:

• State regulation and unions
• Individual employment rights and juridification
• Migration and freedom of movement
• Work and inequality
• Corporate governance and worker voice
• Regulating the gig economy

29th January 2018

Call for the next BUIRA stewardship 2019-2022

Since it was first established, BUIRA has been overseen by a team of stewards and an Executive Board. Currently the stewardship structure includes officers with responsibility for communications, membership, conference/events and financing. The tenure of each stewardship team is 3 years and the team is expected to host the BUIRA annual conference in the last year of tenure.

We are now open to proposals for a takeover of the stewardship after the 2019 annual conference held at Newcastle.  The tenure will be from 2019 – 2022 during which time will include the celebration the 70^th anniversary of the establishment of BUIRA.  

Ideally, the stewardship team will be co-located within the same institution, but as discussed at the AGM, proposals for teams made of individuals at different institutions will also be considered.

Proposals should include names of stewards for the following roles:

• President
• Treasurer
• Membership officer
• Communications officer
• Conference and Events officer

Informal enquiries may be made to jo.mcbride@newcastle.ac.uk and ana.lopes@ncl.ac.uk

25th January 2018

CFP - Fourth Biennial Fairness at Work Conference: Justice at Work: 'Challenges and Possibilities'

Work & Equalities Institute

The University of Manchester 
  

Call for Papers

The Fourth Biennial Fairness at Work Conference  

'Justice at Work: Challenges and Possibilities’

10th & 11^th September 2018

Building on the three previous Fairness at Work Conferences at the University of Manchester (in 2012, 2014, and 2016), the 2018 conference aims to bring together academics and practitioners to discuss strategic issues on the subject of justice and fairness at work. The last two years have seen a major shift in the political environment and an emergence of a politics of national insularity. Yet at the same time major strides have been made in raising awareness and support for living wage campaigns and improving workplace justice.   The conference aims to discuss developments in our understandings of the impact of technological changes (e.g. the gig economy), the changing experiences of work amongst groups of vulnerable workers (e.g. younger workers), the impact of an increasingly hostile context on notions of justice and fairness at the workplace (e.g. a greater challenge to minority rights) and the responses and roles of trade unions and other civil society organisations in dealing with such challenges.

The conference is being held in Manchester at the same time as the 150^th Annual Conference of the UK’s Trade Unions Congress and will organise sessions linked to the TUC conference themes, with invited speakers and activities focused on the future of trade unions and worker regulation and rights.  The TUC was founded in Manchester in 1868 and the WEI Fairness at Work conference will include social and cultural activities linked to the labour history and struggles for equality of the city. 

Papers are invited on these developments in the areas of fair treatment at work, diversity and equality, stress and well being, dignity at work, employment regulation, worker participation, trade unionism, technology and work, and key elements of employment relations such as pay, pensions and working time.

Venue: The University of Manchester

Cost: £200 Waged (£50 unwaged) - includes all food and drink plus the conference dinner

Submission: Please Send 500 word abstracts or 1000 word for sessions by March 1st 2018 tofairwrcconferences@mbs.ac.uk

About the Work and Equalities Institute

The Work & Equalities Institute brings together the European Work and Employment Research Centre and Fairness at Work Research Centre with expertise across human resource management, industrial relations, labour economics, organisational psychology, and employment law. The team has a track record, built over more than twenty five years, of informing the evidence-base and policy agenda of the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the United Nations’ International Labour Organisation, as well as national organisations such as the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and others. WEI’s research is being used in knowledge exchange, dialogue and debate with key stakeholders and policy makers, and makes informed contributions to policy formation and practice. For more information, please visit: https://www.mbs.ac.uk/research/centres-and-institutes/work-and-equalities-institute/

19th January 2018

Lecturer / Senior Lecturer Vacancies at Manchester Business School

Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Employment Law (permanent):

https://www.jobs.manchester.ac.uk/displayjob.aspx?jobid=14555

Lecturer in HRM/Employment Studies (fixed-term 2 years):

https://www.jobs.manchester.ac.uk/displayjob.aspx?jobid=14556

12th January 2018

International Journal of Human Resource Management

International Journal of Human Resource Management

Special Issue on the Regulation of Work and Employment

Volume 28, 2017, Issue 21.

Regulation of work and employment: Advancing theory and research in international and comparative human resource management

Regulation of work and employment: advances, tensions and future directions in research in international and comparative HRM

Jenny K. Rodriguez, Stewart Johnstone & Stephen Procter  

The state and the regulation of work and employment: theoretical contributions, forgotten lessons and new forms of engagement

Miguel Martínez Lucio & Robert MacKenzie

Flexitime and employee turnover: the polycontextuality of regulation as cross-national institutional contingency

Christiana Ierodiakonou & Eleni Stavrou

‘Black Boxes’ and ‘fracture points’: the regulation of gender equality in the UK and French construction industries

Robert Ackrill, Valerie Caven & Jamila Alaktif 

(De) regulation of working time, employer capture, and ‘forced availability’: a comparison between the UK and Cyprus food retail sector

Anastasios Hadjisolomou, Kirsty Newsome & Ian Cunningham

Posting and agency work in British construction and hospitality: the role of regulation in differentiating the experiences of migrants

Gabriella Alberti & Sonila Danaj 

Erratum

12th January 2018

Obituary: Sidney Kessler (1928-2017)

Sidney Kessler, who has died age 89, was a leading academic, with a significant record of public service in the field of industrial relations.

Modest by background as well by temperament, Sidney was born in Whitechapel, London on 2 October 1928, the son of immigrants who had come to this country from Poland.  Brought-up in the Jewish East End, he was exposed to a highly political left-wing culture. He was regaled by tales from two uncles who had gone back from England to fight for the Bolsheviks in the Russian Revolution and his parents were active in the Workers’ Circle, an organisation set-up to provide welfare support to the local community. 

Securing a first-class honours degree at the London School of Economics, he took up his first permanent job in 1956, as Head of the Research Department at the National Union of Mineworkers. With much of British industry still powered by coal, and comprising over 700,000 members, the NUM, led by Will Paynter and Ernest Jones, was a key economic player. Remarkably, however, the Research Department at the time consisted of Sidney and one secretary. Sidney made lifelong friends in the union movement and retained a strong connection to it, returning in the early 1990s to help the TUC deal with inter-union disputes under the Bridlington Agreement.    

In 1964, Sidney became lecturer in industrial relations at City University, London. In 1978 he was made Professor at City, retiring in 1994 as Emeritus Professor.  When appointed, City had only recently become a university and with a handful of other academics he helped establish it as a leading business school. Indeed, somewhat unusually the MBA established had industrial relations as a popular module. While not a prolific writer, in 1992, he co-authored a book with Fred Bayliss entitled ‘Contemporary British Industrial Relations.’ Mapping the impact of Thatcher governments on industrial relations, the book became a standard student textbook, while retaining credibility as a research monograph.   

Sidney’s parallel involvement in public policy developments was equally noteworthy. He participated in a string of public bodies set- up to support British industrial relations in the 1960s and 70s, a period of considerable industrial strife. Much of this work was undertaken in the wake of the Donovan Commission (1968) recommendations and he worked closely with other members of the ‘Oxford School of Industrial Relations’: Hugh Clegg, Allan Flanders and Bill McCarthy.  Sidney played a leading role in: the National Board for Price and Incomes (as part-time adviser, 1965-70) designed to manage pay policy; the Commission on Industrial Relations (on secondment as a full-time director,1971-74) established to facilitate union and employer efforts to reform collective bargaining; and the Standing Commission Pay Comparability (as part-time advisor 1979-80) created in the aftermath of the ‘Winter of Discontent’, to resolve various public sector pay disputes.

Sidney also became an arbitrator whilst at City, work which lead to the award of an OBE in 1990. He was on the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service’s panel of arbitrators for twenty years. He was also Deputy Chairman of the Central Arbitration Committee over this period, being involved in the early adoption of ‘pendulum arbitration’.

12th January 2018

PhD studentship: Brexit and the Impact on Equality Law and Workers' Rights

5th January 2018

Central London BUIRA Seminar: The Changing Labour Contract

Dr Alexandra Oeser (Université Paris Nanterre) From local to international: wiping out the employer?

Dr Simon Joyce (University of Leeds) on the Future of Work and the Gig Economy

Discussant: Dr Rebecca Gumbrell-McCormick (Birkbeck College London)

Friday 26 January 2018, 10.30am – 12.30pm, followed by buffet lunch

University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS

(opposite Madame Tussauds and nearly opposite Baker Street tube)
Room C181 (lunch C287)

For further details and to reserve a place, contact Linda Clarke (clarkel@wmin.ac.uk)

This regular monthly seminar is focused onthe changing labour contract and employee-employer relations in Europe and we are fortunate to have two expert speakers as well as Rebecca Gumbrell-McCormick to lead the discussion.

Alexandra Oeser, Associate Professor of Sociology at the Université Paris Nanterre,will tackle the question of the consequences of the financialization of global firms for local fights for employment and for syndicalist strategies. She focusses on the example of the Molex company, which bought a local factory in southern France in 2004 only to relocate it to China in 2008-2009. The fight against the closure of the factory in rural France obeyed different norms from those of the closure itself, decided in Chicago. She will also talk about forms of masculinity used on both levels in the fight, and their consequences for work structures and political mobilization. Alexandra works on questions of political socialization, whether in education (schools), in the workplace or during political mobilizations. Gender and class and their interaction are central to this work and have more recently been explored through analysis of forms of masculinity. Her publications include: "Quand ils ont fermé l'usine. Lutter contre les délocalisations dans une économie globalisée" (When they closed the factory. Fighting against delocalizations in a globalised economy), Agone, 2017; and ‘Politics, Work and the Family: Gendered forms of mobilization of working class women in Southern France’. Modern and Contemporary France, n°22, 2012

Simon Joyce will speak about the mediation of paid work via online platforms. Companies such as Uber, Upwork, Taskrabbit, and Amazon Mechanical Turk have pioneered this method of organising a workforce, which is widely expected to grow in importance in coming years. This talk will present research investigating the nature and extent of platform work in Europe, and examine its implications for working lives and for the regulation of employment relations. It will also discuss conceptual and theoretical challenges that these developments pose for for industrial relations scholars and researchers. Simonhas researched platform work in his present position of Research Fellow at Leeds University Business Schoothere as well as at the University of Hertfordshire, where he completed his PhD entitled “Revisiting shop stewards and workplace bargaining: opportunities, resources and dynamics in two case studies”. He is co-author of the recently published research for the European Parliament on The Social Protection of Workers in the Platform Economyhttp://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2017/614184/IPOL_STU(2017)614184_EN.pdf 

Rebecca Grumbell-McCormick, has kindly agreed to act as discussant. Rebecca co-authored (with Richard Hyman), ‘Resisting labour market insecurity: Old and new actors, rivals or allies?’ Journal of Industrial Relations, 2017, as well as Trade Unions in Western Europe (2013).

This 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 this event. These meetings can be full though so, if you would like to attend and to help forecast catering provision, please Contact: Professor Linda Clarke, clarkel@wmin.ac.uk or 020350 66528

5th January 2018

WERU/DIG Seminar on Tackling Equality and Diversity

5th January 2018

Manchester Industrial Relations Society (MIRS) Student Debate

You can now access a full report on the recent MIRS Student Debate, as well as the PowerPoint slides from each of the individual teams involved, and a series of speaker/audience photos, via the Society’s website:

www.mirs.org.uk

5th January 2018

Manchester Industrial Relations Society (MIRS) Class and Social Mobility: How to Get a Fairer Society

Speaker: Faiza Shaheen, Director, Centre for Labour and Social Studies (CLASS),

economist, writer, activist and commentator on the most salient social and economic debates of our times, contributor to BBCNewsnight and Channel 4 News

http://www.mirs.org.uk/index.html

Thursday 1 February 6pm
Lecture Theatre G33, Ground Floor
Manchester Metropolitan University Business School
All Saints, Oxford Road, Manchester M15 6BH
Map:  http://www.mmu.ac.uk/travel/allsaints/

Social class is back in media discourse, sometimes in terms of the ‘gross’ financial privileges of the wealthy elite, more often with reference to the perceived Brexit ‘populist backlash’ of the white working class. But how well do we really understand the fundamental underlying reality of social class in 21^st century Britain? Faiza Shaheen explores its multifaceted implications for our society (including in areas such as employment, housing, education, healthcare, income, and political power) and then advances her vision for how we can make Britain less class-ridden and more socially mobile for the benefit of all to create a better, fairer society.   

Manchester Industrial Relations Society website: www.mirs.org.uk

Twitter: @ManchesterIRS

5th January 2018

PhD Scholarships at Sheffield Hallam University Business School

We are seeking PhD scholarship applications for 3 year funded full-time study with proposed theoretical and managerial implications in the following thematic research areas:

People, Work and Organisation (PWO), including: 

• Human resource management performance, coaching / mentoring
• Culture and language
• Employer relations or employment law
• Low pay and the living wage
• International HRM and cross-management in multinational enterprises,

Within the above thematic research areas, we especially welcome proposals with an emphasis on the creation of sustainable social, environmental and economic value in line with the principles of responsible management under the United Nations Global Compact-backed initiative, PRME.

Any enquiries should be emailed to Professor Peter Prowse, Head of PhD Programmes, orDr Christine Gilligan, PhD Admissions Tutor.

Seehttps://www.shu.ac.uk/research/research-degrees/phd-scholarship-opportunities/people-work-and-organisationon how to apply and the selection Process.

19th December 2017

Call for Special Issue Proposals: Human Resource Management Journal

Proposals should be submitted to HRMJ.journal@wiley.com by Monday 5th March 2018. Further information can be found here.

Human Resource Management Journal is a scholarly journal that seeks to promote the understanding of HRM to academics and practising managers. HRMJ aims to promote the theory and practice of HRM, to provide an international forum for discussion and debate, and to stress the critical importance of people management to a wide range of economic, political and social concerns. Over the last decade, HRMJ has broadened its editorial scope to become more globally oriented and has strengthened the international character of its Editorial Team and Board.

Further details on HRMJ can be found below and on the website: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1748-8583.

12th December 2017

Social Europe after Brexit

The University of Greenwich, London, is holding a seminar on ‘Social Europe after Brexit’, hosted by Philippe Pochet, the General Director of the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) and visiting lecturer at the Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL) and the College of Europe.

Date: 7th of December 2017

Location: Hamilton House, 15 Park Vista, Park Vista, Greenwich, SE10 9LZ.

Time: 16:00-17:30

Go to the website to Book Now.

The social dimension of the European Union has been long on the agenda in many different ways. Most people would agree that it has never been the highest on the agenda, but during the last decades there have been major developments with regard to works councils and the European Company Statute. Europe is now in a lot of turbulence, like the refugee crisis but, above all, the Brexit that is dominating all agendas for the moment, nationally as well as at European level. This seminar addresses the question how the development of Social Europe could be affected by Brexit – even if we are uncertain about the form of Brexit and the strategy that has to become clear the next couple of weeks. Some would suggest further progress on this would be damaged with the pulling out of the UK from the EU. Others seem to suggest there is more common understanding among the other EU member states to develop a stronger EU with possibly more support for the social aspects of European integration. Especially the role of social partners will be addressed.

4th December 2017

Academy of Social Sciences | eBulletin November 2017

The eBulletin is available to view online via the following link:
https://www.acss.org.uk/academy-ebulletin-november-2017/

For all news about the Academy and its Campaign visit www.acss.org.uk and campaignforsocialscience.org.uk

4th December 2017

The Gig Economy and Employment Relations

Speaker: Alex Wood (Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford).

http://www.mirs.org.uk/index.html

Thursday 30 November 6pm
Lecture Theatre G33, Ground Floor
Manchester Metropolitan University Business School
All Saints, Oxford Road, Manchester M15 6BH
Map:  http://www.mmu.ac.uk/travel/allsaints/

Recent media coverage of the so-called ‘gig economy’ (with companies such as Uber and Deliveroo) has exposed the shocking extent to which employers exploit vulnerable workers by adopting techniques such as wrongly classifying their employment status, employing them on zero hours contracts, and attaching them to online platforms that enable clients to access labour power potentially from anywhere in the world.

This presentation will explore what the growth of the gig economy means for employment relations by drawing on 180 worker interviews across eight countries, observation of a dozen worker events in the United States and the Philippines, and a survey of 683 Sub-Saharan and Southeast Asian workers. The findings will focus on the shared injustices, identity, solidarity, collective organisation and repertoires of action displayed by remote gig workers. The presentation will place these findings in historical context, highlighting the practical implications for worker organisation in the 21^st century and the conceptual consequences for employment relations as a field of study.      

Manchester Industrial Relations Society website: www.mirs.org.uk

Twitter: @ManchesterIRS

29th November 2017

Call For Papers - BUIRA Conference 2018: The return of politics to employment relations (27 to 29 June 2018)

The call for papers is open until 30^th January 2018.

Please use template provided below and submit your abstract through the BUIRA website: http://www.buira.org/submit

If you would like to propose a stream or special session, please send a proposal to admin@buira.org by 20th December 2017.

BUIRA conference abstract template

Title:

Brief outline (100 words):

Methodology (150 words):

Key findings (250 words):

References:

 BUIRA Conference 2018

The return of politics to employment relations

Middlesex University, London Wednesday 27 to Friday 29 June 2018

Howell (2005) observes that the emergence of the “third system of industrial relations” in the UK – from 1979 - is one that, among the institutional issues, removed employment relations as a high profile political issue in public life.  While the Winter of Discontent made industrial relations the primary political national issue in the 1979 general election, by the time the Employment Relations Bill was being debated in 1998-9 it attracted low key media or even parliamentary attention.  If the neoliberal age has been one which has institutionally sidelined the notion of collective worker representation, it has also been one that has attempted to ideologically individualise the employment relationship into a market transactional one.

In 2017, the situation seems to have changed.  The underlying ideological predisposition that the employment relationship is a consensual voluntary market transaction is a lot less certain among a significant proportion of working people who instead see unfairness and futility.  In the UK, while unemployment is relatively low, ‘underemployment’ and the perceptions of insecurity, precarity, ‘bad jobs’ and inequality are high.  Similar tensions are reported across the developed world.  These changes could be partly the longer-term consequence of the global financial crisis of 2007/8, of global and national austerity or of the way in which globalisation has affected jobs in adjusting the global north to the global south. The politics surrounding the (un)fairness of the system governing work and employment are now acute and are beginning to challenge the assumptions underpinning key institutions governing the system as a whole. 

It is difficult to pin an exact location for this ‘disruption’ but its manifestations are evident.  While workplace collective bargaining remains dormant outside the shrunken domains of public sector and established large employers, the levels of discontent among the ‘unorganised’ are growing. This includes legal and small scale collective challenges to practices associated with the ‘gig economy’ (a prominent theme discussed at BUIRA 2017); and the return of industrial relations policy as a contested ideological agenda at national level politics (with Labour now championing trade union rights and the Conservative government seeming to need to address perceptions of unfairness with a more paternalist reform agenda on issues such as corporate governance and pay inequality.  The Conservatives’ apparent change of direction is of particular interest as it seems to mark an important symbolic break with the cornerstone principle of laissez-faire market individualism that has underpinned government policy since Thatcher in 1979.

Such re-politicisation of work and employment has not just been a UK phenomenon.  The Trump phenomenon in the US, with its rhetoric of protectionism and anti-immigration, has also arguably been based on a populist challenge to the prevailing neoliberal orthodoxy of open markets. .  In France the direction seems to be equal and opposite: the reforming Macron government seems intent on market-based reforms to labour laws more in line with the neoliberal agenda falling out of favour elsewhere.

Although we welcome papers that concern any area of industrial relations, theoretical contributions in relation to the changes we’re observing in the relationship between politics and employment are particularly welcome, as well as papers concerning topics under the following headings:

• State regulation and unions
• Individual employment rights and juridification
• Migration and freedom of movement
• Work and inequality
• Corporate governance and worker voice
• Regulating the gig economy

27th November 2017

Sir Peter Carr 1930-2017 Obituary

Former member of BUIRA, Peter Carr, who has died aged 87, had a remarkable and varied career, including in industrial relations and as a leader of health service improvement. His focus was always on promoting productivity through constructive bargaining as a partnership between employers and workers, represented by unions.

Peter grew up in Mexborough, Yorkshire, the son of George Carr, a printer on the South Yorkshire Times, and his wife, Marjorie (nee Tailby), who engaged in entrepreneurial endeavours such as making sandwiches for working men’s clubs. Peter’s first job after leaving school, aged 13, was as a building-site joiner. His leadership skills were already apparent and he was soon working as site manager. This was interrupted by national service with the Royal Air Force mountain rescue team between 1951 and 1953.

Sponsored by the woodworkers’ union, he then studied politics and economics at Ruskin College, Oxford. He went on to lecture in Yorkshire and Essex colleges on management, labour history and economics, his students mostly shop stewards and managers. In the 1960s he led pioneering exchange courses between UK, Swedish and French trade unions.

Peter took increasingly senior roles in governmental agencies: the Prices and Incomes Board; the Commission on Industrial Relations (CIR); the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas); and the Department of Employment. At the CIR and Acas, he helped to investigate, prevent and settle industrial disputes. Although as a young man he was active in the Labour party and the Fabians, Conservative as well as Labour governments repeatedly re-appointed him to key leadership roles.

He led international missions and was labour attaché for the UK government in Washington DC for five years from 1978. He organised study exchanges between US and UK union leaders and employers.

When Peter returned to the UK, he applied industrial relations skills as regional director of North East City Action, encouraging economic development. In 1990, he became chair of the Northern (English) Regional Health Authority and in this role, and subsequent ones, he led a transformation of health services. ‘His’ region became the best performing region in the UK National Health Service (NHS). He was knighted in 2007.

He went on to chair the English NHS Trust Development Authority, when it was established in 2011. He served diligently in various roles until he was in his mid-80s.

His recreations included cinema, photography, cabinetmaking, cycling, cooking and US history. He founded the Northern Screen Commission, which found settings in the north for many films, including from the Harry Potter series. His memoir, It Occurred to Me (2016), humorously charted major moments of political history in which he participated. As a Europhile, he was appalled about Brexit.

He is survived by his wife, Geraldine (nee Ward), whom he married in 1958, son, Steve, daughter, Alyce, and four grandchildren. (Condolence Cards to: Lady Geraldine Carr, 4 Corchester Towers, Northumberland NE45 5NP, England. Donations would be welcome to www.parkinsons.org.uk ref. ‘Sir Peter Carr No. 1000420’.)

Both the NHS and the US Labor and Employment Relations Association (LERA) recently honoured his many achievements. (Peter’s son Steve said that the lifetime achievement award that LERA awarded to Peter meant more to him than his Knighthood!) Three UK universities conferred hon. doctorates on him. He served in many voluntary roles, including with all of the universities in north east England. For example, he was formerly a member of the Court, Newcastle University and of the Advisory Board, Newcastle University Business School.

To celebrate Peter’s life, there will be a memorial event in the Kings Hall at Newcastle University, at 3.30pm on 18 December 2017.  For details contact Melanie Reed, Events Manager, Newcastle University: melanie.reed@newcastle.ac.uk

Those wishing to contribute to the memorial event, please contact Steve:  stevecarr4@me.com

This obituary draws on a published obituary that also includes a photo of Sir Peter Carr: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/nov/15/sir-peter-carr-obituary

Greg J. Bamber
Professor/Co-Director, Australian Consortium for Research in Employment & Work

Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

Visiting Professor, Newcastle University, UK

www.linkedin.com/in/gregjbamber

22nd November 2017

CALL FOR PAPERS: Fourth Bi-Annual Fairness at Work Conference: 'Justice at Work: Challenges and Possibilities’, University of Manchester's Work & Equalities Institute (WEI).

The University of Manchester

Work & Equalities Institute (WEI)

Fourth Bi-Annual Fairness at Work Conference

'Justice at Work: Challenges and Possibilities’

Date: 10th & 11th September 2018

Venue: The University of Manchester

CALL FOR PAPERS

Building on the three previous Fairness at Work Conferences at the University of Manchester (in 2012, 2014, and 2016), the 2018 conference aims to bring together academics and practitioners to discuss strategic issues on the subject of justice and fairness at work. The last two years have seen a major shift in the political environment and an emergence of a politics of national insularity. Yet at the same time major strides have been made in raising awareness and support for living wage campaigns and improving workplace justice.  The conference aims to discuss developments in our understandings of the impact of technological changes (e.g. the gig economy), the changing experiences of work amongst groups of vulnerable workers (e.g. younger workers), the impact of an increasingly hostile context on notions of justice and fairness at the workplace (e.g. a greater challenge to minority rights) and the responses and roles of trade unions and other civil society organisations in dealing with such challenges.

The conference is being held in Manchester at the same time as the 150^th Annual Conference of the UK’s Trade Unions Congress and will organise sessions linked to the TUC conference themes, with invited speakers and activities focused on the future of trade unions and worker regulation and rights.  The TUC was founded in Manchester in 1868 and the WEI Fairness at Work conference will include social and cultural activities linked to the labour history and struggles for equality of the city. 

Papers are invited on these developments in the areas of fair treatment at work, diversity and equality, stress and well-being, dignity at work, employment regulation, worker participation, trade unionism, technology and work, and key elements of employment relations such as pay, pensions and working time.

Cost: £200 Waged (£50 unwaged): includes all food and drink plus the conference dinner

Abstract submission: Please email 500-word abstracts or 1000-word for sessions by 1^st  March 2018 tofairwrcconferences@mbs.ac.uk 

About the Work & Equalities Institute: The Work & Equalities Institute brings together the European Work and Employment Research Centre and Fairness at Work Research Centre with expertise across human resource management, industrial relations, labour economics, organisational psychology, and employment law. The team has a track record, built over more than twenty five years, of informing the evidence-base and policy agenda of the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the United Nations’ International Labour Organisation, as well as national organisations such as the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and others. WEI’s research is being used in knowledge exchange, dialogue and debate with key stakeholders and policy makers, and makes informed contributions to policy formation and practice.https://www.mbs.ac.uk/research/centres-and-institutes/work-and-equalities-institute/

21st November 2017

VACANCY - POST OF REGIONAL ORGANISER FOR THE NORTH EAST AREA (BASED IN MANCHESTER), EQUITY

If anyone is interested in the below job, please contact Ian for further information and relevant job advert and attachments.

Ian Manborde

Equalities

Diversity Organiser, Equity

T: 020 7670 0273

M: 07595 201 640

Email: imanborde@EQUITY.ORG.UK

JOB CONTEXT FOR THE POST OF REGIONAL ORGANISER FOR THE NORTH EAST AREA (BASED IN MANCHESTER), EQUITY

 Equity

Equity is the UK trade union for professional performers and creative practitioners. As a leading industry organisation, Equity is known and respected nationally and internationally for the work we do with, and on behalf of, our members working across all areas of the entertainment industry.

We are a campaigning and organising union and proud of our strong record of taking the things that matter to our members to parliament and other centres of influence. Members are at the heart of all the union’s activities and by getting involved they drive forward the work of the union.

Equity works to support its 42,000+ members by negotiating their terms and conditions including fee structures with all kinds of employers and employer’s groups.

Background

The union has a team of staff in offices across the UK who have a wealth of experience and expertise when it comes to advice and representation. They are able to deal with the issues raised by members working in all areas of the industry whether it be a major feature film, a theatre in education show, radio voice overs, a circus act or any other live or recorded work.

The post of Regional Organiser for the North East Area works within a small team of highly skilled organisers dedicated to representing, protecting and promoting the interests of our members and plays a key role in organising, representing and supporting Equity members working in both live entertainment and recorded media in Yorkshire and the North East of England. As the current contract expires at the end of 2017, we are seeking to appoint from 2018 onwards.

We have Regional Organisers for the North East, North West, Midlands and South East Areas of the UK and National Organisers for Scotland & Northern Ireland, and Wales and the South West of England.  They are responsible for the monitoring and enforcing of collective agreements, leading negotiations with employers for revision of agreements and establishing new agreements. They manage a regional casework load and represent members in dispute with employers. Their day-to-day work includes responding to queries from members and giving advice on interpretation of agreements and enquiries arising from individual engagements. 

Equity, Guild House, Upper St Martin's Lane, London WC2H 9EG

www.equity.org.uk   

Find Equity on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pages/Equity/29887547393 & Twitter at twitter.com/EquityUK

20th November 2017

Reminder - CIPD Applied Research Conference 2017

There's still time to register for the CIPD Applied Research Conference, taking place this year in Glasgow, on 30 November and 1 December, 2017. 

The Applied Research Conference (ARC) is an annual meeting place for researchers and practitioners working in people management, employment policy and related fields. It is an interdisciplinary conference that covers a wide range of aspects of people management, employment, learning and development and organisational development.

Register now »

The conference starts on the evening of Thursday 30 November with practical workshops. The main programme on Friday 1 December centers on 35 research papers grouped into 15 thematic streams.

Don't miss out on hearing informative keynote presentations from:

• Professor Kim Hoque and Dr Lisa Cameron MP on disability at work
• Professor Eva Demerouti on work engagement and job crafting

Take a look at the full programme and booking information here.

ARC holds a unique place in strengthening links between academic research and HR practice. Join us to hear about cutting edge research, discuss how it can be applied in policy and practice, and network with like-minded researchers and practitioners.

We look forward to welcoming you to the event. Please feel free to forward this email on to any collaegues who you think may be interested in attending.

8th November 2017

Central London BUIRA Seminar: European Social Dialogue

Philippe Pochet (General Director, European Trade Union Institute) on What is the Role of Employers and what are the Hopes for the Future?

Werner Buelen (European Federation of Building and Woodworkers) on The Difficulties and Reality of the European Social Dialogue for Trade Unions

Discussant: Professor Richard Hyman (LSE)

Friday 24 November 2017, 10.30am – 12.30pm, followed by buffet lunch

University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS

(opposite Madame Tussauds and nearly opposite Baker Street tube)
Room C385 (lunch C287)

For further details and to reserve a place, contact Linda Clarke (clarkel@wmin.ac.uk)

This regular monthly seminar is focused on European Social Dialogue (ESD), which celebrated its 30^thanniversary in 2015, and we are extremely lucky that Philippe Pochet, has agreed to speak on this. Philippe is General Director of the ETUI and visiting lecturer at the Université catholique de Louvain (UCL) and the College of Europe, having previously been Director of the Observatoire social européen (OSE). The ESD remains one of the pillars of social Europe and an important element of European integration, though since the beginning of the millennium it has lost much of its momentum. His aim is to speak about the strategy of the different EU actors, in particular the employers’ organisations and European multinationals in the ESD, and to consider the ESD’s possible revival following the crises of European integration and threats to the internal market. Werner Buelen, Political Secretary Construction, from the European Federation of Building and Woodworkers will then follow with a critical account of the reality and results of the ESD.Richard Hyman, author with Rebecca Gumbrell McCormick of Trade Unions in Western Europe, has agreed to act as discussant.

The subject is highly topical in the light of the Brexit debate and the seminar provides 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 this event. These meetings can be full though so, if you would like to attend and to help forecast catering provision, please Contact: Professor Linda Clarke,  clarkel@wmin.ac.uk or020350 66528

7th November 2017

VACANCY – Senior Lecturer in International Human Resource Management

Newcastle University Business School – Senior Lecturer in International Human Resource Management

The vacancy closes on 29th November and is listed also on jobs.ac.uk: http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/BFJ051/senior-lecturer-in-international-human-resource-management-b94857a/

Applications are via the HR job vacancies website: https://vacancies.ncl.ac.uk/LoginV2.aspx

6th November 2017

A Symposium On Public Sector Pay And Workforce Issues: The End Of Austerity?

The University Of Greenwich Work And Employment Research Unit And Public Services International Research Unit Present

A Symposium On Public Sector Pay And Workforce Issues: The End Of Austerity?

Wednesday 29 november 2017. 13.00 – 18.00

Venue: Room HH102, Hamilton House, Park Vista, Greenwich, SE10 9LZ

This symposium brings together a range of speakers to discuss the current state of public sector pay and workforce issues.  We will look at what has happened to pay and the workforce in the public sector over the years of the Government pay policy, with up-to-date assessments from key participants in the debate. We have several speakers with different perspectives to help build the bigger picture. In recent months, the question of lifting the 1% cap on public sector pay has risen to the top of the political agenda. There are claims and counter claims about whether public or private sector workers are paid more and these claims will be tested.

Chair: Professor Sian Moore, University of Greenwich

Keynote speakers:

Ken Mulkearn, (Editor/author of Pay in the Public Services 2017, published by Incomes Data Research). Ken will cover recent pay outcomes and what they indicate for policy, where policy might be headed and the influences on this (labour markets, Government stance, unions, LP policy). He will also cover the key issues for policy-makers – comparability, pay progression, pay setting machinery, supply and inflation/catch-up.

Joshua Rawlings, (Economic Researcher, Office for National Statistics). Joshua’s presentation will cover information around the factors affecting earnings using ASHE. The presentation focuses in particular on the differences in public and private sector pay. It presents two statistical models which explore the relationship between mean hourly earnings excluding overtime and a range of independent variables, the estimates of which are based on the 2016 ASHE data and includes a control for the size of the organisation.

Other Speakers

David Powell, (Senior salary officer NEU (NUT section, following the merger with ATL)) will cover pay developments in schools, Academies and the STRB. The talk will set out the impact of public sector pay policy since 2010 on teachers in schools and academies.  The following issues will be covered: pay restraint; the breakup of the national teacher pay structure; the imposition of performance-related pay; and the consequences of these policy developments for teacher recruitment and retention.

Peter Gordon, (Head of terms and conditions of service, British Medical Association) will cover the junior doctors’ dispute and the role of the DDPRB. He will outline the BMA’s interactions with the DDRB (doctors’ pay review body), talk about the junior doctor contract dispute before finishing with a short section on negotiating during austerity.

Gerry O’Dwyer, (National Officer Royal College of Nursing). Pay developments for NHS staff. Gerry will highlight the issues in respect of the 2017/18 NHS pay round and the ‘claim’ made by unions to the Chancellor in advance of the submission of evidence to the NHS Pay Review Body. This will cover in particular the position of nurses and health care assistants and will highlight the issues that have caused them most concern during the period of austerity. He will also discuss the RCN’s successful  ‘Scrap the Cap campaign’, as well as the challenges that the RCN can face in considering industrial action.

Dave Penman, (General Secretary, First Division Association): Dave will consider the impact of pay policy on senior civil servants and the issues of recruitment and retention of skilled employees in the senior civil service.

A panel of experts will then discuss the issues raised

Nicola Allison, Remuneration Advisor, Office of Manpower Economics

Heather Wakefield, National Negotiations Officer for Local Government, Unison and Visiting Fellow, University of Greenwich

Professor Ian Kessler, Kings College London.

This is a free seminar open to the public and all are invited but please can you inform us if you are planning to attend from outside the University of Greenwich by registering your interest at:

 https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-symposium-on-public-sector-pay-and-workforce-the-end-of-austerity-tickets-39015529499?aff=es2 ​

How To Find Us

Hamilton House, 15 Park Vista, Greenwich, London SE10 9LZ

Telephone: +44 20 8331 9083 E-mail:i3centre@gre.ac.uk

3rd November 2017

Call for the next BUIRA stewardship 2019-2022

2nd November 2017

Call For Papers - BUIRA Conference 2018

Call for Papers

BUIRA Conference 2018

The return of politics to employment relations

Middlesex University, London Wednesday 27 to Friday 29 June 2018

Howell (2005) observes that the emergence of the “third system of industrial relations” in the UK – from 1979 - is one that, among the institutional issues, removed employment relations as a high profile political issue in public life.  While the Winter of Discontent made industrial relations the primary political national issue in the 1979 general election, by the time the Employment Relations Bill was being debated in 1998-9 it attracted low key media or even parliamentary attention.  If the neoliberal age has been one which has institutionally sidelined the notion of collective worker representation, it has also been one that has attempted to ideologically individualise the employment relationship into a market transactional one.

In 2017, the situation seems to have changed.  The underlying ideological predisposition that the employment relationship is a consensual voluntary market transaction is a lot less certain among a significant proportion of working people who instead see unfairness and futility.  In the UK, while unemployment is relatively low, ‘underemployment’ and the perceptions of insecurity, precarity, ‘bad jobs’ and inequality are high.  Similar tensions are reported across the developed world.  These changes could be partly the longer-term consequence of the global financial crisis of 2007/8, of global and national austerity or of the way in which globalisation has affected jobs in adjusting the global north to the global south. The politics surrounding the (un)fairness of the system governing work and employment are now acute and are beginning to challenge the assumptions underpinning key institutions governing the system as a whole. 

It is difficult to pin an exact location for this ‘disruption’ but its manifestations are evident.  While workplace collective bargaining remains dormant outside the shrunken domains of public sector and established large employers, the levels of discontent among the ‘unorganised’ are growing. This includes legal and small scale collective challenges to practices associated with the ‘gig economy’ (a prominent theme discussed at BUIRA 2017); and the return of industrial relations policy as a contested ideological agenda at national level politics (with Labour now championing trade union rights and the Conservative government seeming to need to address perceptions of unfairness with a more paternalist reform agenda on issues such as corporate governance and pay inequality.  The Conservatives’ apparent change of direction is of particular interest as it seems to mark an important symbolic break with the cornerstone principle of laissez-faire market individualism that has underpinned government policy since Thatcher in 1979.

Such re-politicisation of work and employment has not just been a UK phenomenon.  The Trump phenomenon in the US, with its rhetoric of protectionism and anti-immigration, has also arguably been based on a populist challenge to the prevailing neoliberal orthodoxy of open markets. .  In France the direction seems to be equal and opposite: the reforming Macron government seems intent on market-based reforms to labour laws more in line with the neoliberal agenda falling out of favour elsewhere.

Although we welcome papers that concern any area of industrial relations, theoretical contributions in relation to the changes we’re observing in the relationship between politics and employment are particularly welcome, as well as papers concerning topics under the following headings:

• State regulation and unions
• Individual employment rights and juridification
• Migration and freedom of movement
• Work and inequality
• Corporate governance and worker voice
• Regulating the gig economy

The call for papers is open until 30^th January 2018.

Please use template provided below and submit abstract through the BUIRA website: https://www.buira.org/

If you would like to propose a stream or special session, please send a proposal to admin@buira.org by 20th December 2017.

BUIRA conference abstract template

Title:

Brief outline (100 words):

Methodology (150 words):

Key findings (250 words):

References:

2nd November 2017

Academy of Social Sciences | eBulletin October/November 2017

ACADEMY E-BULLETIN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2017

For all news about the Academy and its Campaign visit www.acss.org.uk and campaignforsocialscience.org.uk

 ACADEMY NEWS

NEW FELLOWS

Earlier this month the Academy has conferred the award of Fellow on 69 leading social scientists. The new Fellows are drawn from academics, practitioners and policymakers across the social sciences. They have been recognised after an extensive peer review process for the excellence and impact of their work through the use of social science for public benefit. This includes substantial contributions and leadership in various fields, including higher education, social, economic and environmental policy, government, law, charitable foundations and think tanks.

Announcing the conferment, Professor Roger Goodman FAcSS, Chair of the Academy said, “Each new distinguished Fellow has been recognised for their outstanding and impactful contributions in their respective fields, and will prove invaluable additions to the range of expertise within the Academy. This speaks not only to the power and scope of the social sciences to address the big issues of our time, but also to the growing depth and breadth of representation within the Academy as the voice of the social science community as a whole.” More (including full list)

REF SUB-PANEL MEMBERSHIP APPLICATIONS

HEFCE has begun the work of recruiting people to serve as members of the Sub-Panels for the next REF exercise. The information is here and here.

Nomination is via subject associations. We are ready, as with the recruitment of chairs, to confirm Fellowship for individuals, giving the date of conferment and confirming that they remain in good standing with the Academy (which means that the individual has not resigned or lapsed their Fellowship and their subscription is up to date). Once you know you are being nominated, please write to Jordene Sewell to request this, noting which learned society is nominating you and for which Sub-Panel.

NEW ESRC HEAD

The Academy of Social Sciences congratulates Professor Jennifer Rubin of King’s College London on her appointment as Executive Chair of the Economic and Social Research Council.  The ESRC needs to be a strong voice for using a wide range of types of rigorous social science research and evidence in the new problem-driven funds of UKRI – for example in addressing industrial strategy and global challenges. It also needs to support a strong social science base of many different types of social science, including basic, descriptive and causal research across all disciplines. We are sure that under Professor Rubin’s leadership the ESRC will continue to recognise the importance of maintaining and extending the excellence of the strong social science base in the UK. We look forward to working with Professor Rubin both to promote the best use of social science evidence and to ensure support for existing strengths in UK social sciences, as well as their further development.

NOMINATIONS

The closing date for receipt of Fellowship nominations for the winter round is Friday 24^th November. Guidelines and Forms are available from the Academy website.

 NEW WEBSITE

We are delighted to launch our new-look website, with improved functionality and stability. Do please take a look.

ACADEMY EVENTS

PRESIDENT’S LUNCH 2017 – Edinburgh, 14^th December – NOW BOOKING

This year the lunch returns to the Royal Society of Edinburgh and will be held on Thursday 14^th December 2017. We are delighted that John Swinney MSP, Deputy First Minister, will speak at the event. This is the annual highlight of the Academy’s calendar; an opportunity for Fellows, member learned societies and their guests to enjoy high level networking in elegant and congenial surroundings. Newly conferred Fellows may also be presented with their certificate by the President at the event. Learned Societies may take whole or part tables (tables will seat 8 people). Tickets are available here.

CfSS 5th ANNUAL SAGE PUBLISHING LECTURE 2017 – ‘EDUCATIONAL INEQUALITY IN A POPULIST ERA’ – 21^st November

The Rt Hon Lord (David) Willetts FAcSS, former Minister of State (Department for Business, Innovation and Skills) (Universities and Science), is confirmed as respondent for the lecture to be given on ‘Educational Inequality in a Populist Era’ by Professor Louise Richardson FAcSS, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford. The event will take place at 61 Whitehall, London SW1A 2ET, on the evening of Tuesday 21^st November 2017. Fellows and Learned Societies should have received an email invitation with a link for booking places, which are free.

INTERNATIONAL AND MULTI-DISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVES ON EVIDENCE-BASED POLICY (London 4^th December)

Part of the seminar series organised by the Academy’s International Advisory Group. Seminar 4: ‘Historical and International Perspectives on Health’ will take place at 33 Finsbury Square, London EC2A 1AG on 4^th December 2017. More

CAMPAIGN FOR SOCIAL SCIENCE NEWS

STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP FORUM (SLF) EXAMINES ROLE OF SOCIAL SCIENCE IN INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY

The first meeting of the Campaign for Social Science’s newly convened Strategic Leadership Forum on 10 October considered how the social sciences could most effectively contribute to the emerging priorities of the government’s industrial strategy. Bringing together leaders from across academia, the public sector and industry, the SLF addressed two major themes: the role of the social sciences in solving the ‘productivity puzzle’, and how to make more effective use of social science expertise by forging new links across business and social enterprise.  The meeting included an excellent talk from Andy Haldane FAcSS, Chief Economist at the Bank of England, on the productivity challenges facing the UK. Participants agreed various means by which members of the Forum can help showcase the ways in which they are deeply engaged with the challenges of regional development and industrial strategy, and the global challenges set by UKRI.

The SLF is one of the benefits available to Silver and Gold level members of the CfSS Supporter Scheme. It brings together social science leaders to discuss key topics, foster learning and strengthen strategic relationships across the sector. It offers social science leaders a unique opportunity to engage with current and forthcoming policy issues and hear from colleagues in the sector, external decision makers, influencers and thought leaders. Its goal is to examine what the Campaign for Social Science can do to promote the prospects of social science, including research funding, and to work more closely with HEIs and Learned Societies to do so.

More information about joining the scheme is available by emailing the Campaign team.

“PATHWAYS TO IMPACT IN THE WELSH GOVERNMENT AND NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF WALES” TOOLKIT

The Campaign for Social Science launched a new online tool-kit Pathways to impact: a practical guide for researchers, in collaboration with Cardiff University. The online tool-kit is designed to help new researchers improve their political impact by providing guidance to link social science evidence more closely to the policy making process, with a focus on the Welsh Government and National Assembly for Wales.

A series of straightforward recommendations outlines how to make sure research stands out and is most effectively put into action by civil servants, parliamentarians, and Ministers. There are four broad themes: understanding the political context and landscape; engagement and maximising impact; credibility and independence; overcoming obstacles. More

Policy Monitor for October– our monthly compendium of official consultations relevant to our community, is also available in an online searchable form on the Campaign website

 POLICY WORK

From our Head of Policy: Sharon Witherspoon MBE FAcSS

During October we have continued our engagement with the ESRC and UKRI over the longitudinal studies review, data access and industrial strategy.  We remain concerned that the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund needs to consider not only the social science elements of the current challenges identified so far under the industrial strategy, but also the ‘horizontal’ elements that might lead to strategic consideration of productivity and regional differences, including experiments that might explore how to improve productivity.

We held fruitful meetings with our Learned Society members at the end of September and again at the British Academy in early October about the work that they are already doing to engage with practitioners and professionals outside academic that might inform our engagement with the ESRC and UKRI.  We are preparing a template and plan to circulate that shortly. It is vital that we are able to demonstrate the existing work the social sciences are already undertaking to engage outside the academic community.

Meanwhile, we are continuing our work on pathways from school to university to employment, showing the various destinations of employment of social science graduates, and highlighting the importance of number and data skills.  We expect to have a draft report by the end of the year, with the aim of launching in February. Sage Publishing is partnering in this work.

We also note the publication today of the Final Report of the Industrial Strategy Commission, headed by Dame Kate Barker FAcSS.

CONTEMPORARY SOCIAL SCIENCE – the journal of the Academy of Social Sciences

• Volume 12, issues 1 and 2 have been published as “Political Activism across the Life Course”. Instructions for accessing Contemporary Social Science. See the related blogpostby the Editor, David Canter on Social Science Space.
• Listen to introductory podcasts to many issues by the Journal Editor (transcripts available).
• The Editor continues to welcome proposals for themed issues. Guidelines.

Current Calls for Papers for themed issues:

• Social Urbanistics: Social science explorations of urbanisms (deadline 30^th January 2018) FELLOWS’ BOOKS AND NEWS

OPPORTUNITIES

• UKRI are now looking for Council members. More

FELLOWS NEWS AND BOOKS

• Professor Vernon Bogdanor CBE FAcSS will deliver a Gresham Lecture on ‘The 2016 US Presidential Election – One Year On’ on 7th November
• BOOK PRIZE: Graham Towl FAcSS and Tammi Walker win BPS book award with Preventing Self-Injury and Suicide in Women’s Prisons
• BOOK LAUNCH (LSE, 8 November): Ian Gough FAcSS, Heat, Greed and Human Need
• NEW BOOK: Tony Champion FAcSS, Thomas Cooke, Ian Shuttleworth (eds), Internal Migration in the Developed World: Are we becoming less mobile?
• NEW BOOK: Diane Reay FAcSS, Miseducation: Inequality, Education and the Working Classes
• NEW BOOK: Louise Fitzgerald FAcSS and Aoife McDermott, Challenging Perspectives on Organizational Change in Health Care
• NEW BOOK: David Byrne FAcSS and Sally Ruane, Paying for the Welfare State in the 21st Century
• NEW BOOK: Gordon Foxall FAcSS, Advanced Introduction to Consumer Behaviour Analysis
• NEW BOOK: Gordon Foxall FAcSS, Cognition in Consumer Psychology: How Perception and Emotion Guide Action
• NEW BOOK: Malcolm Cowburn, Loraine Gelsthorpe FAcSS, Azrini Wahidin FAcSS (eds), Research Ethics in Criminology: Dilemmas, Issues and Solutions
• NEW BOOK: Azrini Wahidin FAcSS, Ex-Combatants, Gender and Peace in Northern Ireland: Women, Political Protest and the Prison Experience
• NEW BOOK: Panicos Demetriades FAcSS, A Diary of the Euro Crisis in Cyprus – Lessons for bank recovery and resolution

LEARNED SOCIETY NEWS AND EVENTS

• British Academy of Management (BAM)

o   CEO sought – deadline extended to 2 November. More

o   Event: Doctoral writing workshop (Joint LLD and OTCD SIG event). London 27 November

o   Event: Mid-career faculty – moving to the next level. Nottingham 30 November

o   International Journal of Management Reviews (IJMR) Special Issue – ‘Paradoxes’ - Call for Papers (deadline 1 November)

o   Association for Project Management (APM)

o   New publication: Road to Chartered series, No 6: ‘Professional Responsibilities and Obligations: the case of millennials’.

o   Research publication: The Importance of Conventions: a critical evaluation of current practice in social cost-benefit analysis

o   Project Assurance SIG Conference. ‘Project Assurance: what could it do for you?’ London, 23 November.

o   Festival of Social Science Event: ‘Putting social science into project management’. London, 9 November.

• British Educational Research Association (BERA)

o   2017 BERA SAGE Public Engagement and Impact Award Winner announced

o   2018 BERA Doctoral Thesis and Masters Dissertation Awards – Now Open. (Deadline 12 January 2018)

• Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE)

o   Event: Fulfilling the potential of your doctorate. London, 24 November

o   Event: Beds, bricks and HE (II) – trends and issues in student residential accommodation. London 24 November

o   Event: Preventing plagiarism. London 24 January 2018

o   Measuring Employability Gain. London 21 November 2017.

o   SRHE International Research Conference 2017 – ‘Higher Education rising to the challenge: Balancing expectations of students, society and stakeholders’ Newport, Wales, 6-8 December 2017.

o   SRHE Newer Researchers’ Conference, Newport Wales, 5 December 2017

• Society for the Advancement of Management Studies (SAMS)

o   Professional Development Workshop, 20 April 2018, USA

o   Journal of Management Studies Conference 2018. Babson College USA, 18-20 April 2018 – call for papers now open.

• British Accounting and Finance Association (BAFA)

o   Annual Conference 2018 with doctoral masterclasses. London, 10-11 April 2018.

• British Sociological Association (BSA)

o   BSA Philip Abrams Memorial Prize 2018 – Call for Nominations (1^st December 2017)

o   Postgraduate Forum Regional Day Event proposals 2018.

o   Work, Employment and Society - Call for Papers – Solidarities in and through Work in an Age of Extremes (1 December 2017)

• British Association for International and Comparative Education (BAICE)

o   Biennial Conference: ‘Comparative Education and Development Alternatives: Critiques, Innovations and Transitions’. York, 12-14 September 2018. 

o   Seed corn and Research Capacity Building Funding Opportunities (Deadline 1 May 2018)

o   BAICE Thematic Forum Grants (Deadline 1 May 2018)

• British Society of Criminology (BSC)

o   Innovation Fund Grants now available.

• Political Studies Association (PSA)

o   Total Exposure. The PSA is inviting academics to pitch TV or radio programmes based on their research to top broadcasters (deadline 31 October)

o   Free one-day EU workshop for teachers London, 25 November.

• Society for Studies in Organizing Healthcare (SHOC)

o   Biennial Conference: Co-ordinating healthcare across boundaries and borders. Montreal, May 2018. More

• British Society of Gerontology (BSG)

o   47th Annual British Society of Gerontology Conference, Manchester, United Kingdom, 4–6 July 2018

• Association for Social Anthropology (ASA)

o   Conference: Shifting States. Australia 15-18 December 2017

• Association for Psychosocial Studies (APS)

o   Biennial conference: Psychosocial Reflections on a Half Century of Cultural Revolution. Bournemouth 5-7 April 2018.

• Regional Studies Association (RSA)

o   PhD Student and early career conference 2017: ‘Charting a career path – sharing the learning and lessons. Newcastle 2-3 November.

• Association for Tourism in HE (ATHE)

o   Annual Conference - New Approaches to Tourism Learning in Higher Education. 7-8 December 2017. Eastbourne, 7-8 December 2017.

• Social Research Association (SRA)

o   Annual Conference 2017: ‘Social Research in a Sceptical Age’. London 6 December 2017.

o   o    Annual Conference 2018. Keele, 6-8 April 2018.

SOCIAL SCIENCE SPACE

Some recent postings on socialsciencespace.com

• Robert Dingwall FAcSS, Open Access and Learned Societies – an update
• David Canter FAcSS, When is it appropriate to call a crime ‘Terrorist’?
• Robert Dingwall FAcSS, Presumed Consent to Organ Donation – Gesture Politics?
• Elizabeth Newnham, Rex Pui-kin Lam, Satchit Balsani, When you talk about evacuation, you talk about psychology
• Michael Todd, Mitigation: the best kind of rainy day savings

Social Science bites podcast:

Tom Chatfield on Critical Thinking and Bias

Philosopher Tom Chatfield’s media presence – which is substantial – is often directly linked to his writings on technology. But his new book is on critical thinking, and while that involves humanity’s oldest computer, the brain, Chatfield explains in this Social Science Bites podcast that new digital realities interact with old human biases. As Chatfield tells interviewer Dave Edmonds, while he defines bias as “an inaccurate account of the way things actually are,” this like confirmation, affect and recency bias aren’t automatically toxic to critical thinking.

2nd November 2017

Special issue of the living Wage in the journal Employee Relations

1st November 2017

Challenges in Equality and Diversity in 2017

The University of Greenwich is proud to announce the launch of its university-wide Diversity Interest Group. Our key-note speakers are: 

Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon OBE
Professor Kim Hoque

The launch event will take place on Thursday 2nd November in QA063 at 6pm-8pm.

Join us for an evening of key-note speeches, Q&A, poster displays, canapes and wine!

To register, please email BusinessEvents@gre.ac.uk

30th October 2017

Lecturership in HRM, Birkbeck College, University of London

Lecturership in HRM, Birkbeck College, University of London

This post, for which the closing date is 15 November 2017, is advertised as being in HRM, so many readers of this bulletin may not consider it at first glance, but in the particulars it is also stated the main field for applicants should be either HRM or ER/IR. My colleague John Kelly and I would very much encourage potential applicants whose main field is employment/industrial relations to apply, to join our little team of ER/IR specialists in the Department of Management at Birkbeck. This is an open-ended position at the level of lecturer with an initial three-year probation. Those interested should contact: Professor John Kelly, Professor in Management (j.kelly@bbk.ac.uk) or Dr Rebecca Gumbrell-McCormick, Senior Lecturer in Management (r.gumbrell-mccormick@bbk.ac.uk).

A link to the posting can be found at:
http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/BEY041/lectureship-in-human-resource-management/.

or

http://jobs.bbk.ac.uk/fe/tpl_birkbeckcollege01.asp?s=4A515F4E5A565B1A&jobid=65206,3212825623&key=117050816&c=22793402343425&pagestamp=secxweisdtxwxoezri

23rd October 2017

Extraordinary Times in Politics and Society

Manchester Industrial Relations Society

Extraordinary Times in Politics and Society

Speaker: Andy Beckett, Guardianjournalist, author of When the Lights Went Out: Britain in the Seventies (2009) and Promised You a Miracle: Why 1980–82 Made Modern Britain (2015).

http://www.mirs.org.uk/index.html

Thursday 16 November 6pm
Lecture Theatre G33, Ground Floor
Manchester Metropolitan University Business School
All Saints, Oxford Road, Manchester M15 6BH
Map:  http://www.mmu.ac.uk/travel/allsaints/

Britain is living through a period of upheaval in in its party politics, economy, and everyday life, at a pace and on a scale not experienced since the infamous long crisis from the mid-70s to the early 80s. Andy Beckett, an acclaimed historian of those years, and a Guardian political journalist with a roving brief since 1997, will talk about the loss of faith in the Conservative party and the free-market ideas that have sustained it for 40 years; why this is happening now, and whether the Conservatives can reverse it; and about the opportunities this time of flux may be opening up for the Labour party and the wider British left.

For further details of the Manchester Industrial Relations Society please  contact:

Professor Ralph Darlington, Salford Business School, University of Salford, Salford M5 4WT

Phone: 0161-295-5456; email: r.r.darlington@salford.ac.uk

Manchester Industrial Relations Society website:www.mirs.org.uk

Twitter: @ManchesterIRS

20th October 2017

Jobs in HR/ER at Warwick

The Organisation and HRM group at the University of Warwick are currently recruiting in the area of HRM/Employment Relations. Links to the adverts are as follows:

Assistant Professor in Human Resource Management (80254-107)
http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/BEZ739/assistant-professor-in-human-resource-management-80254-107/

Associate Professor in Human Resource Management (80254-107)
http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/BEZ679/associate-professor-in-human-resource-management-80254-107/

 Potential applicants can contact Head of the OHRM Group, Kim Hoque (kim.hoque@wbs.ac.uk) for a confidential discussion. 

19th October 2017

Available Position in Labour Relations - Memorial University of Newfoundland

MEMORIAL UNIVERSITY OF NEWFOUNDLAND

St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada

FACULTY OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

(AACSB International Accredited)

Labour Relations

Competition Number: VPA-BUSI-2016-001

Applications are invited for a tenure-track faculty position in Labour Relations at the rank of assistant professor with a proposed commencement date of July 1, 2018. Salary will be commensurate with qualifications and experience. The position is subject to budgetary approval.

The successful candidate will have a demonstrated record of scholarly output in Labour/Industrial Relations, and be able to teach in undergraduate and graduate (MBA, Master of Employment Relations) programs, and support the faculty’s M.Sc. and PhD specializations. The ability to also teach undergraduate and graduate courses in Human Resource Management (HRM) or a track record of HRM research would be an asset.

Applicants should have a PhD in Labour/Industrial Relations or a related field, and a demonstrated commitment to teaching and research in a university environment. Applicants must have demonstrated research productivity commensurate with the rank of assistant professor. If a successful candidate has not completed an earned doctorate, he/she shall be appointed to a regular term, non-renewable three-year appointment at the rank of assistant professor. If the candidate completes all the requirements for the doctorate during the first 24 months of the term appointment, he/she shall begin a tenure-track appointment following completion of the requirements of the degree.

The Faculty of Business Administration is a leader in management education and is accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). Approximately 1,300 students are registered in the undergraduate programs of the Faculty, with another 200 students completing graduate programs, including a PhD and M.Sc. in Management. For additional information about our Faculty, please visit our web site at www.business.mun.ca.

Memorial University is Newfoundland and Labrador’s only university, and plays an integral role in the educational and cultural life of the province. Offering diverse undergraduate and graduate programs to over 18,000 students, Memorial provides a distinctive and stimulating environment for learning. St. John’s is a safe, friendly city with great historic charm, a vibrant cultural life, and easy access to a wide range of outdoor activities. For further information about Memorial, please visit www.mun.ca.

The deadline to receive applications is January 31, 2018. Applications should include a curriculum vita, a cover letter, names and addresses of three references, statement of teaching interests, and statement of research interests, and three selected recent research publications (and/or working papers if the candidate does not have three publications). Please send applications electronically to:

Dr. Isabelle Dostaler, Dean

Faculty of Business Administration

Memorial University of Newfoundland

St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada, A1B 3X5

E-mail: deanfba@mun.ca

REFERENCE: VPA-BUSI-2016-001

For further information telephone (709) 864-8851 or fax (709) 864-2467 or e-mail deanfba@mun.ca.

All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however, citizens and permanent residents of Canada will be given priority. Memorial University is committed to employment equity and encourages applications from qualified women and men, visible minorities, Aboriginal people and persons with disabilities.

18th October 2017

Events: Central London BUIRA in Conjunction with the University of Westminster

BRITISH UNIVERSITIES INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS ASSOCIATION

Central London BUIRA in conjunction with

THE UNIVERSITY OF WESTMINSTER

The Central London branch of BUIRA meets in the Westminster Business School of the University of Westminster at 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS (nearest tube Baker Street). There are many with an interest in industrial relations in the London area, including from universities, trade unions and employer associations. The meetings take the form of seminars, with key speakers, and attract a lively mix of people, both BUIRA and non-BUIRA members, from a range of different disciplines and organisations, some very expert in the particular topic discussed. We usually meet on the last Friday of the month at 10.30, with coffee available from 10.15 and a sandwich lunch provided from 12.30. This gives ample opportunity to discuss the presentation from an invited speaker and matters of common interest, as well as just to catch up with friends. The programme aims to give us fresh insights into key current issues, to present new approaches to the subject of industrial relations, and to discuss important research in the area - whether in Britain or farther afield, particularly on mainland Europe. The programme for 2017-18 is about the changing nature of social partnership and the labour contract at national, transnational and global level.

24^th November 2017, European Social Dialogue, with Philippe Pochet (General Director, European Trade Union Institute) on What is the Role of Employers and what are the Hopes for the Future? and tbcDiscussant: Richard Hyman (LSE)

Room C385 (lunch C287)

26^th January 2018, The changing labour contract, with Dr Simon Joyce (University of Leeds) on the Future of Work and the Gig Economy and Dr Alexandra Oeser (Université Paris Nanterre) From local to international: wiping out the employer?

Discussant: Rebecca Gumbrell-McCormick (Birkbeck College)

Room CG44

23^rd February 2018, Labour Abuse, with Professor Roberto Pedersini (University of Milan) on Coping with fraudulent Work in the European Union, and Nick Clark (Middlesex University) on One law for the rich… Case studies from the Unpaid Britain project

Room: CG44

27^th April 2018 Labour Migration with Professor Bridget Anderson (University of Bristol) on and Dr Rachel Marangozov (Institute of Employment Studies) on Migration of Nurses, Room C279 (lunch C287)

25^th May 2018, tbc

Room: C279 (lunch C287)

So do put these dates in your diary now. These meetings can be full. To ensure a place and to help forecast catering provision, please Contact: Prof. Linda Clarke, Westminster Business School, University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS. Tel. 020350 66528; email: clarkel@wmin.ac.uk(please also let me know if you subsequently need to cancel)

17th October 2017

Event: Unpaid Britain Project Report Launch

Following the publication in June of Unpaid Britain’s interim report on unpaid wages, the project’s final report will be launched on 30th November from 9am to 1pm at an event at Conway Hall in Central London.

Key elements of this report will be presented, showing the extent of non-payment, strategies deployed by some employers to withhold wages, the cost to unpaid workers and to the state, and evaluation of the means available for recovering unpaid sums. An audience of workers, union representatives, employers, NGOs, regulators, policy makers and academics will be invited to consider and respond to a range of recommendations aimed at combating unpaid wages. They will hear keynote addresses from the newly-appointed Director of Labour Market Enforcement (Sir David Metcalf) and a leading trade unionist, and testimony from some of those directly involved in cases.

If you wish to attend the event please register using Eventbrite, if you have any questions please don’t hesitate contacting Eva Herman on e.herman@mdx.ac.uk

12th October 2017

Book Launch Event: The Marketization of Employment Services. Dilemmas of Europe’s Work-First Welfare States

Dear colleagues,

Former Work and Employment Research Unit (WERU) director Ian Greer will be launching a new book based on a research project into services for the unemployed at the University of Greenwich on 17th November 2017.

"The Marketization of Employment Services. Dilemmas of Europe's Work-First Welfare States" includes contributions from WERU members Lisa Schulte and Graham Symon, and is coauthored Karen Breidal and Flemming Larsen from Aalborg University and Matthias Knuth from the Institut fuer Arbeit und Qualifikation in Duisburg. The research was funded by the Hans Boeckler Stiftung and the publisher is Oxford University Press.

The event will run from 4- 7 PM in Queen Anne Court, Room 063, in the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, with food and drinks after the discussion. Commentators will be Chiara Benassi (King’s College London), John McInally (the Public and Commercial Services Union), and Matt Vidal (University of Loughborough).  Below, a description of the book.

To confirm attendance, please contact BusinessEvents@greenwich.ac.uk.

Best wishes,

Prof Sian Moore

Director of the Work and Employment Research Group (WERU)

The Marketization of Employment Services. Dilemmas of Europe’s Work-First Welfare States

Ian Greer, Karen Breidahl, Matthias Knuth, and Flemming Larsen

Oxford University Press, 2017

Across Europe, market mechanisms are spreading into areas where they did not exist before. In public administration, market governance is displacing other ways of coordinating public services. In social policy, the welfare state is retreating from its historic task of protecting citizens from the discipline of the market. In industrial relations, labor and management are negotiating with an eye to competitiveness, often against new non-union market players.

What is marketization, and what are its effects? This book uses employment services in Denmark, Germany, and Great Britain as a window to explore the rise of market mechanisms. Based on more than 100 interviews with funders, managers, front-line workers, and others, the authors discuss the internal workings of these markets and the organizations that provide the services.

This book gives readers new tools to analyse market competition and its effects. It provides a new conceptualization of the markets themselves, the dilemmas and tradeoffs that they generate, and the differing services and workplaces that result. It is aimed at students and researchers in the applied fields of social policy, public administration, and employment relations and has important implications for comparative political economy and welfare states.

12th October 2017

5th BUIRA PhD Symposium: Call for Papers

12th October 2017

Event: Challenges in Equality and Diversity in 2017

Challenges in Equality and Diversity in 2017

The University of Greenwich is proud to announce the launch of its university-wide Diversity Interest Group.

Our key-note speakers are:

Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon OBE

Professor Kim Hoque

The launch event will take place on Thursday 2nd November in QA063 at 6pm-8pm.

Join us for an evening of key-note speeches, Q&A, poster displays, canapes and wine!

To register, please email BusinessEvents@gre.ac.uk

12th October 2017

CIPD Applied Research Conference 2017

CIPD Applied Research Conference 2017

Thursday 30th November – Friday 1st December 2017

University of Strathclyde Business School, Glasgow.

Join us at the CIPD Applied Research Conference 2017!

The Applied Research Conference (ARC) is an annual meeting place for researchers and practitioners working in people management, employment policy and related fields. It 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.

This year, ARC is hosted in Glasgow by University of Strathclyde Business School, named Business School of the Year 2016 in the Times Higher Education Awards.

The conference starts on the evening of Thurs 30 November with practical workshops. The main programme on Friday 1 December centres on 35 research papers grouped into 15 thematic streams. We are also delighted to welcome keynote presentations from Professor Kim Hoque and Dr Lisa Cameron MP talking on disability at work, and Professor Eva Demerouti on work engagement and job crafting.

ARC holds a unique place in strengthening links between academic research and HR practice. Join us to hear about cutting edge research, discuss how it can be applied in policy and practice, and network with like-minded researchers and practitioners.

The full programme and booking information is available at http://www.cipd.co.uk/arc

11th October 2017

‘HRM: Tensions, Limits and (Potential) Demise’ – Manchester Industrial Relations Society Meeting

Manchester Industrial Relations Society

Arthur Priest Memorial Lecture/Joint Meeting with Manchester CIPD

HRM: Tensions, Limits and (Potential) Demise

Speaker: Professor Tony Dundon

Professor of Human Resource Management, Alliance Manchester Business School, University of Manchester

Co-author of Understanding Employment Relations (2011), Handbook of Research on Employee Voice (2014) and A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book about Employment Relations (2017)

http://www.mirs.org.uk/index.html

Thursday 19 October 6pm-7.30pm
Lecture Theatre LT33, Ground Floor
Manchester Metropolitan University Business School
All Saints, Oxford Road, Manchester M15 6BH
Map:  http://www.mmu.ac.uk/travel/allsaints/

This presentation will review a longstanding tension in human resource management concerning the extent to which HRM can both support workers while at the same time representing (and defending) the interests of employers. Contemporary developments in hyper-marketization and ideological individualism will suggest that HR policy and practice have advanced an exclusive pro-market rather than inclusive pro-business agenda, to the neglect of broader organisational and societal concerns. As a result, the role of HRM - both an area of professional practice and an academic discipline - is at risk of impoverishment. Implications for the future of the subject area and the way HRM is taught in mainstream business schools will be considered.

For further details of the Manchester Industrial Relations Society please  contact:

Professor Ralph Darlington, Salford Business School, University of Salford, Salford M5 4WT

Phone: 0161-295-5456; email: r.r.darlington@salford.ac.uk

Manchester Industrial Relations Society website:www.mirs.org.uk

Twitter: @ManchesterIRS

7th October 2017

Invitation to The University of Manchester's Work and Equalities Institute (WEI) Research Seminar

Invitation to The University of Manchester's Work and Equalities Institute (WEI) Research Seminar

Following the soft launch of the Work and Equalities Institute at the University of Manchester, we kick off our Research Seminar Series with a talk jointly organised with Salford Business School.

Sally Brett, Head of Equalities at the British Medical Association will deliver the talk "Women in the Workplace: the difference a generation makes". The talk reflects on the progress that has been made on gender equality in organisations over the past generation and considers the ongoing challenges facing women in the labour market. This talk is aimed at anyone interested in debates around gender equality in organisations, the gender pay gap, women’s career progression and specific challenges for women in medicine.

Date: Wednesday 11th October 2017

Time: 18:00 - 20:00 Hrs

Venue: University of Salford, MediaCityUK DPL, Room 0:11, MediaCityUK, Salford Quays, Salford M50 2HE

Registration via Eventbrite:http://bit.ly/2jFbNah (This event is FREEand requires registration for catering purposes).

Following the talk, there will be a drinks reception and networking opportunity.

6th October 2017

Book available via open access: Making work more equal: A new labour market segmentation approach

6th October 2017

The new issue of Historical Studies in Industrial Relations - no. 38 (2017) will be published shortly.

The new issue of Historical Studies in Industrial Relations - no. 38 (2017) will be published shortly.

Contents

Jean Jenkins                   Hands No Longer Wanted: Closure and the Moral Economy of Protest, Treorchy, South Wales 

Paul Smith                      The Law behind the Law: Rookes v. Barnard [1964], the Common Law and the Right to Strike 

Document                       The Trade Disputes Act 1965 

Otto Kahn Freund           Rookes v. Barnard — and After (1964) 

Charles McGuire              ‘Going for the Jugular’: The Steelworkers’ Banner and the 1980 national steelworkers’ strike in Britain

Michael Gold                   ‘A Clear and Honest Understanding’: Alan Fox and the Origins and Implications of Radical Pluralism  

William Brown                 Introduction to Alan Fox, ‘Corporatism and Industrial Democracy’ 

Alan Fox                         Corporatism and Industrial Democracy: The Social Origins of Present Forms and Methods in Britain and Germany (1977) 

Dave Lyddon                   Writing Trade Union History: The Case of the National Union of Public Employees

Book Reviews

David Howell                   Emmet O’Connor, Big Jim Larkin Hero or Wrecker?

Andrew Perchard         Lewis H. Mates, The Great Labour Unrest: Rank-and-File Movements and Political Change in the Durham Coalfield (Manchester University Press: 2016)

John Eldridge                  John Macnicol, Neoliberalising Old Age

Chris Howell                    Steve Williams and Peter Scott (eds), Employment Relations under Coalition Government: The UK Experience, 2010–15

28th September 2017

NON-STANDARD EMPLOYMENT CONTRACTS: DO THE TAYLOR REVIEW SOLUTIONS MEET THE CHALLENGES?

WORK AND EMPLOYMENT RESEARCH UNIT SEMINAR SERIES 2017-18
 
NON-STANDARD EMPLOYMENT CONTRACTS: DO THE TAYLOR REVIEW SOLUTIONS MEET THE CHALLENGES?
 
WEDNESDAY 11 OCTOBER 2017. 15.00 – 18.00
 
VENUE: ROOM HH102, HAMILTON HOUSE, PARK VISTA, GREENWICH, SE10 9LZ
 
This seminar, the first of our series for 2017-18, considers the rise of non-standard forms of employment contract (the so-called ‘gig economy’), the impact for workers and the solutions proposed by the recent Taylor Review (July 2017). We have four presentations from those who have conducted recent work on non-standard working and the legal issues to provide the context for a debate on the recommendations of the Taylor Review. Our speakers include Dr Ewan McGaughey (Kings College London), Andrea Broughton (Institute of Employment Studies), Gill Dix (Acas) and Professor Sian Moore (University of Greenwich).  
 
Ewan McGaughey (Kings College London) will consider the recommendations of the Taylor Review (July 2017) and whether this was a squandered opportunity to address the problems of employment rights and tax evasion in today’s economy. He will consider the four main groups of Taylor’s recommendations. He will explain why relabelling employment statuses, more secondary legislation, cutting holiday pay, and ‘softening’ labour rights will solve little. He will also explain why a test for employment status highlighted by Taylor - ‘mutuality of obligation’ - has not formed part of binding UK Supreme Court jurisprudence since Autoclenz Ltd v Belcher. He will then discuss what the Taylor Review did not: gig economy fraud, and ensuring corporations do not evade rights and tax. Dr Ewan McGaughey joined King’s College as a lecturer in private law in 2014. He holds degrees from King’s, the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin and the London School of Economics, and has taught at UCL. He is also a research associate at the University of Cambridge Centre for Business Research. He was a Visiting Scholar at University of California, Berkeley from July to September 2016. He has appeared on Al Jazeera English, and French Parliament television (LCP Assemblée Nationale at 14:00), and speaks German reasonably well. 

Andrea Broughton (IES) will discuss her research in five sectors where atypical working is common - taxi/transport, professional/creative/high-skilled work, office/short online tasks/administration, physical low-skilled work and physical skilled work. Andrea Broughton is a Principal Research Fellow at the Institute for Employment Studies (IES), where she has worked since 2006. She has a degree in modern languages and a Masters in international industrial relations and human resource management. She has more than 20 years of experience of research and writing in the areas of employment relations, working conditions and industrial relations, specialising in international comparative research. She is interested in a range of labour market issues and has recently been focusing on atypical ways of working. She recently carried out a research project on precarious work for the European Parliament.

Gill Dix (Head of Strategy, Acas) will discuss policy work by Acas on tackling the abuse of atypical working contracts, based on queries received by the telephone advisory service. Gill Dix has a background in public policy and social research working in the voluntary and public sectors and academia. She was Head of Research at Acas for 15 years before becoming Head of Strategy. She has particular interests in workplace conflict, voice and participation as well as wider questions relating to decision making in public services. Gill has authored many research reports, papers and book chapters and is an active contributor to the prestigious Workplace Employment Relations Survey series.

Sian Moore (University of Greenwich) will explore the experiences of workers on non-standard contracts in the context of the Taylor Review, based on her recent research. Good Work: The Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices celebrates the ‘largely successful’ ‘British Way’, characterised by the UK’s flexible labour market. While driven by concerns about worker exploitation and vulnerability, flexibility is also seen to complement individual lifestyle and preference and there is an assumption that the demographics of the labour market define choice and job characteristics. The report advocates ‘good quality’ work, but that this will be achieved through an essentially voluntarist approach. Sian Moore is Professor of Employment Relations and Human Resource Management and Director of the Work and Employment Research Unit (WERU) at the University of Greenwich. Her research centres on the relationship between gender and class, consciousness and activism. Her current research focus is work and employment in the logistics sector and on the pay and conditions of homecare workers.

This is an open free seminar and all are invited but please can you inform us if you are planning to attend from outside the University of Greenwich by contacting Professor Geoff White on wg08@gre.ac.uk.
 
HOW TO FIND US

Hamilton House, 15 Park Vista, Greenwich, London SE10 9LZ
Telephone: +44 20 8331 9083 E-mail: i3centre@gre.ac.uk
 ​

28th September 2017

Job vacancy at the University of Sheffield

28th September 2017

36th INTERNATIONAL LABOUR PROCESS CONFERENCE

36th INTERNATIONAL LABOUR PROCESS CONFERENCE

Buenos Aires, 21-23 March, 2018

Call for submission of abstracts and symposium proposals

Deadline: 31st October through the Conference website: www.ilpc.org.uk

ILPC focuses on three moments of labour within the broader political economy: labour processes, labour markets and labour organizing.

The special theme of the 2018 event will be Class and the Labour Process.

Conference streams

1- The changing time and space of productive and reproductive processes (Sachetto, Alberti and Lisdero)

2- The hidden places of Production (Briken, Garvey, Stewart, Portes Virginio, Mitidiero Junior, Mies Bombardi, Mac Ionnrachtaigh, Avila Romero and Concheiro Bórquez)

3- Breaking boundaries and opening new struggles (Hammer, Fishwick and Chambers)

4- Artificial Intelligence (Grigera and Woodcock)

5- Precarious Work in Comparative Perspective (Kalleberg and Vallas)

6- Human Resource Practice in Labour Process and Workplace (Vincent, Bamber, Delbridge, Doellgast, Grady and Grugulis)

Keynote speakers

Prof. David Harvey (CUNY)

Prof. Leo Panitch (York university)

Prof. Sergio Leite Lopes (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro)

Prof. Cinzia Arruzza (The New School)

For more information please check the Conference website (www.ilpc.org.uk) or email us at ilpc2018@gmail.com

22nd September 2017

University of Manchester Work and Equalities Institute Research Seminars

University of Manchester

Work and Equalities Institute

Research Seminars

2017-2018 – Semester 1

Women in the Workplace: the difference a generation makes

Sally Brett, British Medical Association

Wednesday 11^th October 2017

18:00 - 20:00 Hrs

University of Salford, MediaCityUK DPL, Room 0:11
MediaCityUK, Salford Quays, Salford M50 2HE

Registration via Eventbrite: http://bit.ly/2jFbNah

Abstract

The talk reflects on the progress that has been made on gender equality in organisations over the past generation and considers the ongoing challenges facing women in the labour market. This talk is aimed at anyone interested in debates around gender equality in organisations, the gender pay gap, women’s career progression and specific challenges for women in medicine. Following the talk, there will be a drinks reception and networking opportunity.

About the Speaker

Sally Brett is the Head of Equalities at the British Medical Association. Previously, she was Senior Policy Officer in the TUC’s Economic and Social Affairs Department, covering individual employment rights. She is also a trustee and co-chair of the charity Working Families, which campaigns on behalf of working parents and carers.

Honoured in the breach: unpaid wages as a business model

Nick Clark, Middlesex University Business School

Wednesday 18th October 2017

15:30 - 17:00 Hrs (coffee and tea at 15:15)

AMBS Precinct Room 1.1, Crawford House, University of Manchester

Abstract

The seminar will present some of the results of a two-year investigation into unpaid wages (the Unpaid Britain project). The various research methods used will be described, including the use of several novel data sources, and what they have revealed about the abuse of workers’ rights in certain sectors, as well as the use of litigation strategies and the abuse of limited liability by some employers. Enforcement (or otherwise) by workers, their unions and the state will be examined and evaluated, as will the extent of non- or under-payment. Evidence will suggest that the recent attention focussed on the “gig economy” may be a distraction from more fundamental failings in the labour market. Future research, policy development and pedagogy arising from the research will also be discussed.

About the Speaker

Currently leading a two year project examining unpaid wages in Britain (with a particular focus on the London labour market) Nick Clark’s background is in practice. He held several trade union research and policy posts over 26 years before joining the Working Lives Research Institute in 2009, moving on to Middlesex University in 2015. His academic research has built on practical knowledge of wage bargaining, labour markets, migrant workers and employment rights, using mixed methods of documentary and legal case research, primary and secondary data analysis, and interview. He is an experienced user of the ASHE, LFS and Family Resource Survey datasets. Lately, his work focuses on various groups of workers’ lived experience of the employment contract, as distinct from its form, and on employer strategies for increasing the rate of exploitation. Other recent work has included studies of EU migration to the UK for the Friederich Ebert Foundation, approaches to combatting forced labour for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and labour market intermediaries and trafficking for labour exploitation for EuroFound. He was a member of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority Board for the first four years of the GLA’s existence.  

Work, health and stress: some observations

Professor Tarani Chandola, University of Manchester

Wednesday 8^th November 2017

15:30 - 17:00 Hrs (coffee and tea at 15:15)

AMBS Precinct Room 1.1, Crawford House, University of Manchester

Abstract

The talk will feature some recent studies on work, health and stress, examining whether “any job is better than no job” when it comes to health and wellbeing outcomes. The importance of good quality work and advantaged labour market conditions for health and wellbeing will be highlighted. It will also feature some examples of what could be done to reduce stress in the workplace.

About the Speaker

Tarani is a Professor of Medical Sociology. He joined the University of Manchester and the Cathie Marsh Institute in April 2010, was the head of the Disciplinary Area of Social Statistics (2012-2014) and the director of the Cathie Marsh Institute (2013-2016). He was formerly at the UCL Research Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, and prior to that completed his PhD and post-doc at Nuffield College, University of Oxford. He is a co-director of two ESRC centres: the National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM: www.ncrm.ac.uk) and the International Centre for Lifecourse Studies in Society and Health (ICLS: www.ucl.ac.uk/icls). Tarani’s research is primarily on the social determinants of health, focusing on health inequalities and psychosocial factors, and the analysis of longitudinal cohort studies. Much of his research is on stress at work, and its effects on health and related biomarkers. He leads the academic network on Health, Work and Wellbeing (manchester.ac.uk/hawnn), sits on the Health & Work advisory board for Public Health England and chairs the scientific advisory board for the ESRC Research Centre on Micro-Social Change Centre (MiSoC).

22nd September 2017

Call for Papers for special stream at the 36th ILPC, Buenos Aires, 21-23 March 2018

Call for Papers for special stream at the 36^th ILPC, Buenos Aires, 21-23 March 2018

Breaking boundaries and opening new struggles:

Linking class and labour process to development in the Global South

Organisers:

Anita Hammer, Sociology of Work, De Montfort University, UK ahammer@dmu.ac.uk

Adam Fishwick, International Political Economy, DMU, UK adam.fishwick@dmu.ac.uk

Thomas Chambers, Social Anthropology, Oxford Brookes, UK tchambers@brookes.ac.uk

The special stream invites contributions that address the diversity of work and labour process in the Global South and its implications for class and development. Recent debates have sought to emphasise the return of class and its relevance to informal and precarious work in India (Agarwala 2013), to rethinking development in Global Production Networks (Campling et al. 2016), and to issues of collective action and resistance, production-social reproduction, and labour-state relations for understanding work and development across Latin America, South and East Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East. Our core question is: how does the primacy of work and the labour process improve our understanding of development in the Global South?

The novelty, theoretically and methodologically, of the stream is its comparative and cross-disciplinary approach, breaking down boundaries – both geographical and disciplinary – to research on labour, work, and development across the Global South. While addressing general themes of class relations of inequality at work and in development, papers are sought that provide conceptually and empirically situated analyses of work and labour. The diversity of contexts reinforces the relevance of comparative analysis. The aim throughout the sessions will be to draw out the connections and differences across different sites and regions, at the same time advancing discussion on attempts to redefine ‘development’ around a more ‘work-oriented’ or ‘labour-centred’ approach.

Papers are sought on following themes, though they are not restricted to these – either conceptually or empirically – with a substantive focus on country(ies) and region(s) of Latin America, South and East Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East. We strongly encourage papers from scholars based in these regions, as well as opening the stream to researchers working in other disciplines. Early career researchers and doctoral students are particularly encouraged to submit.

• Intersections of class with other social relations of caste, gender and ethnicity and implications for labour process across national and/or regional contexts
• Interlinkages between formal and informal and precarious work and labour in the Global South and implications for regulation, institutions and collective action
• Work and class in the context of dispossession, new regions and value chain construction in different regions/countries
• Blurred boundaries between production and social reproduction and implications for class and resistance
• Forms of collective action, workplace resistance, and trade union organising
• Alternative modes of organising work and the implications for construction of a ‘labour-centred’ development
• Comparative research methodologies or papers that address the implications of comparative and/or interdisciplinary approaches in the Global South
• South-South and North-South differences and points of comparison in work and labour across different sites and sectors
• Implications for development of any of the above issues relating to work and labour

Successful contributors will also be invited to submit papers to prepare a special issue in a journal or an edited book based on their contributions to the special stream.

For informal enquiries pl contact Anita Hammer at ahammer@dmu.ac.uk

This special stream is linked to the Labour, Work, and Development Network launched in 2016 and which brings together established as well as early career and doctoral scholars from a variety of disciplines – sociology, anthropology, international political economy and geography – conducting research on labour, work, and development across the Global South. For more details see: https://labouranddevelopment.wordpress.com/

The deadline for submissions of abstracts is 31st October 2017 via the ILPC website (www.ilpc.org.uk). Please mention the special stream title.

22nd September 2017

HRM: Tensions, Limits and (Potential) Demise’ – Manchester Industrial Relations Society Meeting

Manchester Industrial Relations Society

Arthur Priest Memorial Lecture/Joint Meeting with Manchester CIPD

HRM: Tensions, Limits and (Potential) Demise

Speaker: Professor Tony Dundon

Professor of Human Resource Management, Alliance Manchester Business School, University of Manchester

Co-author of Understanding Employment Relations (2011), Handbook of Research on Employee Voice (2014) and A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book about Employment Relations (2017)

http://www.mirs.org.uk/index.html

Thursday 19 October 6pm-7.30pm
Lecture Theatre LT33, Ground Floor
Manchester Metropolitan University Business School
All Saints, Oxford Road, Manchester M15 6BH
Map:  http://www.mmu.ac.uk/travel/allsaints/

This presentation will review a longstanding tension in human resource management concerning the extent to which HRM can both support workers while at the same time representing (and defending) the interests of employers. Contemporary developments in hyper-marketization and ideological individualism will suggest that HR policy and practice have advanced an exclusive pro-market rather than inclusive pro-business agenda, to the neglect of broader organisational and societal concerns. As a result, the role of HRM - both an area of professional practice and an academic discipline - is at risk of impoverishment. Implications for the future of the subject area and the way HRM is taught in mainstream business schools will be considered.

20th September 2017

Climate Change and Work PhD Scholarship in University of Westminster

Climate Change and Work PhD Scholarship in University of Westminster

Three years, full time - £16,000 annual stipend plus fee waiver, see https://www.westminster.ac.uk/courses/research-degrees/research-areas/business/research-studentships

A full-time University of Westminster PhD Studentship is available to candidates with Home fee status in the Centre for the Study of the Production of the Built Environment (ProBE) starting in January 2018. This PhD studentship is part of ProBE’s programme of research on Climate Change and Work, conducted in partnership with the York University, Toronto, funded by the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), led by Professor Carla Lipsig Mummé and entitled Adapting Canadian Work and Workplaces (ACW), an international perspective (see see www.adaptingcanadianwork.ca). The programme aims to explore the role of work and global warming and the role of organised workers and trade unions as a force for adaptation. ProBE is responsible for the international dimension, with projects on green transition strategies and worker agency in Europe, the US, and at a global level, as well as in the built environment. The applicant is expected to have broad knowledge of the field and some experience of quantitative and qualitative research. The student will be asked to do 6 hours of work per week as a research assistant to support ProBE’s ACW research and enhance REF 2020 submission. There may also be opportunities for exchange visits to Canada.

The Studentship consists of a home/EU fee waiver and a stipend of £16,000 per annum over three years of PhD study.

Entry requirements

Eligible candidates will hold at least an upper second class honours degree and a Master’s degree. Candidates whose secondary level education has not been conducted in the medium of English should also demonstrate evidence of appropriate English language proficiency, normally defined as 6.5 in IELTS (with not less than 6.0 in any of the individual elements).

Read the University’s standard entry requirements.

Further enquiries

For an informal discussion, contact: Dr Kristina Vasileva, PhD Admissions Coordinator, T: +44 (0)20 7911 5000 ext 66771, E: k.vasileva@westminster.ac.uk; or Professor Linda Clarke, ProBE Director, Tel: 0044 (0)20350 66528, email: clarkel@westminster.ac.uk

Deadline: Monday 16 October 2017

17th September 2017

HRM: Tensions, Limits and (Potential) Demise Manchester Industrial Relations Society Arthur Priest Memorial Lecture/Joint Meeting with Manchester CIPD

Manchester Industrial Relations Society

The new Manchester Industrial Relations Society colour brochure with full details of the 2017-18 programme of meetings and speakers is now available on the Society’s newly redesigned website: www.mirs.org.uk

We have a very impressive line-up of topics and speakers, starting with Professor Tony Dundon (Alliance Manchester Business School and co-author of A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book About Employment Relations, 2017) speaking on HRM: Tensions, Limits and (Potential) Demise (joint meeting with the CIPD), Andy Beckett (Guardian journalist and author of When the Lights Went Out: Britain in the Seventies (2009) and Promised You a Miracle: Why 1980–82 Made Modern Britain (2015)’, speaking on Extraordinary Times in Politics and Society, and Alex Wood (Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford) speaking on The Gig Economy and Employment Relations. Other meetings on topics such as Brexit, discrimination law, and employment relations analytical perspectives, follow.

Meanwhile check out the amazing list of annual programme of meetings and speakers Manchester Industrial Relations Society have had over the last 53 years. The topics are a weather vane of the key industrial relations issues of the day, and the speakers include some of the most prestigious academic figures within the field as well as leading practitioners: http://www.mirs.org.uk/mirs-archives.php

Manchester Industrial Relations Society Arthur Priest Memorial Lecture/Joint Meeting with Manchester CIPD

HRM: Tensions, Limits and (Potential) Demise

Speaker: Professor Tony Dundon

Professor of Human Resource Management, Alliance Manchester Business School, University of Manchester

Co-author of Understanding Employment Relations (2011), Handbook of Research on Employee Voice (2014) and A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book about Employment Relations (2017)

http://www.mirs.org.uk/index.html

Thursday 19 October 6pm-7.30pm
Lecture Theatre LT33, Ground Floor
Manchester Metropolitan University Business School
All Saints, Oxford Road, Manchester M15 6BH
Map:  http://www.mmu.ac.uk/travel/allsaints/

This presentation will review a longstanding tension in human resource management concerning the extent to which HRM can both support workers while at the same time representing (and defending) the interests of employers. Contemporary developments in hyper-marketization and ideological individualism will suggest that HR policy and practice have advanced an exclusive pro-market rather than inclusive pro-business agenda, to the neglect of broader organisational and societal concerns. As a result, the role of HRM - both an area of professional practice and an academic discipline - is at risk of impoverishment. Implications for the future of the subject area and the way HRM is taught in mainstream business schools will be considered.

For further details of the Manchester Industrial Relations Society please  contact:

Professor Ralph Darlington, Salford Business School, University of Salford, Salford M5 4WT

Phone: 0161-295-5456; email: r.r.darlington@salford.ac.uk

Manchester Industrial Relations Society website: www.mirs.org.uk

Twitter: @ManchesterIRS

15th September 2017

BUIRA Conference 2017

Photos and a short report from the 2017 conference in Portsmouth 'The Changing Face of Industrial Relations: New Borders, New Frontiers' can now be viewed on the BUIRA website https://www.buira.org/conference/7

Stewart Johnstone

15th September 2017

ILERA World Congress: Deadline submission of abstracts extended until 30 September

Greetings,

This is the official announcement from the Secretariat of ILERA World Congress 2018.

We are so pleased to inform you that the deadline for Abstract/Session Proposal Submission has been extended to September 30, 2017. Please refer to the following important dates:

  1. Call for Papers
    - Abstract Submission Deadline: September 30, 2017
    - Notification of Abstract Acceptance: October 31, 2017
    - Full Paper Submission Deadline: January 31, 2018
    - Notification of Session Allocation: March 31, 2018

    2. Call for Organized Sessions
    - Session Proposal Submission Deadline: September 30, 2017
    - Notification of Session Proposal Acceptance: October 31, 2017
    - Abstract Submission Deadline: January 31, 2018
    - Notification of Session Allocation: March 31, 2018
  * Please note that the scholarship application deadline has also been extended to September 30, 2017.

In addition, please note that the scholarship application deadline has also been extended to September 30, 2017.

With your meaningful participation, the congress will be a valuable platform to seek the directivity for the new labor environment caused by the 4th industrial revolution under the theme “Employment for a Sustainable Society: What Is To Be Done?”.

  ◆ Track 1: Collective Voices and Social Dialogue for a Better Future
  ◆ Track 2: HRM Challenges and Responses for the Changing Workplace
  ◆ Track 3: Labor Market Dualization and Institutional Responses
  ◆ Track 4: Workforce Diversity, Labor Market Inequality and Social Integration
  ◆ Track 5: Work and Employment Relations in Emerging Market Economies
  ◆ Track 6: The Future of Work

For more detailed information regarding Abstract/Session Proposal Submission, please visit the website:
    - Call for Papers: http://www.ilera2018.org/abstract/submission.html
    - Call for Organized Sessions: http://www.ilera2018.org/abstract/organ_session.html

If you have any questions or comments on this congress, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Thank you.

11th September 2017

New book : The Emerging Industrial Relations of China'

Just published on industrial relations in contemporary China:

'The Emerging Industrial Relations of China', edited by William Brown
(Cambridge University) and Chang Kai (Renmin University of China),
Cambridge University Press, Hardback, £68.

Faced with rising worker aspirations and dissent, the past decade has
seen the Chinese government changing its relationship with both
employers and workers. Employers are developing their own organisations
and the once monolithic trade union has become more internally flexible.
In this book a new generation of Chinese scholars draw on fieldwork and
surveys to analyse developments in trade union organisation and employer
strategy, in collective consultation and employee participation, and in
the role of government and the treatment of strikes. It concludes with a
comparison of the Chinese experience with that in Vietnam and Russia by
Tim Pringle (SOAS).

Tom Kochan of MIT praises the book as '... destined to be the go-to
textbook and scholarly resource on this subject'.

11th September 2017

Job vacancy at Monash University

Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor - Human Resource Management/Employment Relations

8th September 2017

Job vacancy at Alliance Manchester Business School

SENIOR LECTURER IN EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS LAW

Closing Date : 24/09/2017.
Employment Type : Permanent.
School/Directorate : Alliance Manchester Business School.
Division : Alliance MBS - PMO Division.
Hours Per week : Full time.
Salary : £39,992 to £58,149 per annum according to experience.
Location : Oxford Road, Manchester.
Job Reference : HUM-10564.

Applications are invited from those with teaching and research interests in employment law. Teaching will comprise core employment law modules on the School’s undergraduate and postgraduate programmes (including the CIPD accredited MSc in HRM and Industrial Relations). You will be expected to make a significant research contribution in terms of grants, publications and impact, as well as to collaborate with colleagues across the School in the newly established Work and Equalities Institute.

As an equal opportunities employer, we welcome applications from all suitably qualified persons. As the School is committed to Athena SWAN principles, we would particularly welcome applications from women, who are currently under-represented at this grade. All appointments will be made on merit.

Further details here: http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/BDT553/senior-lecturer-in-employment-law/

8th September 2017

job vacancy

25th August 2017

job vacancies

JOBS

Durham University Business School will be advertising a range of posts in management, including Employment Relations and HRM, in September.  Posts will be available at Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, and Professorial levels.  Details will be available, once posted in September, on

https://www.dur.ac.uk/jobs/  

25th August 2017

Special Issue on Migration and Work

Journal of Industrial Relations special issue on Migration and Work

Dear colleagues

This is a reminder that the deadline for submission of articles to the Journal of Industrial Relations special issue on Migration and Work is 1 October 2017.

The Call for Papers is at the following link: http://journals.sagepub.com/pb-assets/cmscontent/JIR/JIR_migration_and_work_SI_CfP.pdf 

Regards,

Guest Editors:

Stephen Clibborn - stephen.clibborn@sydney.edu.au

Chris F Wright - chris.f.wright@sydney.edu.au

25th August 2017

Are you paying your BUIRA membership twice?

Now that the membership subscriptions are now collected by card payment via Stripe we have now cleared up all of the confusion regarding membership rates and all members are now paying the correct amount for their membership type.

However there are still a small but significant number of members who are paying via Stripe but also have a standing order with us, i.e. in effect paying twice. We cannot do anything from this end to stop that, it is the individuals arrangement with their banks and the bank sends the payment - we don't collect it like a direct debit. Therefore could you all please check and if you still retain a standing order for BUIRA please cancel it.

If you have any queries please contact stephen.procter@ncl.ac.uk (Treasurer).

21st August 2017

Women, Collectivism and Wellbeing

Gender, Work and Organization

10th Biennial International Interdisciplinary Conference Sydney, 13-16 June 2018

 Women, Collectivism and Wellbeing

Convenors

Julie Douglas, Auckland University of Technology, NEW ZEALAND Katherine Ravenswood, Auckland University of Technology, NEW ZEALAND Gill Kirton, Queen Mary University of London, UNITED KINGDOM

Cathy Brigden, RMIT, AUSTRALIA

Trine Pernille Larsen, FAOS, DENMARK

This stream calls for papers that critically analyse the role of the collective in employee wellbeing, and particularly women, including but not limited to aging and immigrant women.

There are few that would argue that while women have progressed in paid work in many countries there are still gaps in how gender in work and organisations is understood, researched and acted upon. One such example is the concept of wellbeing and its manifestation in the workplace especially in relation to improved performance (Spence, 2015). For some organisations this is viewed as the icing on the cake in their toolbox of human resource strategies (Guest, 2017; Laine, 2015). However, as some jurisdictions introduce the concept of work-related stress into health and safety legislation, there has been a flurry of renewed interest in not just the health but also the wellbeing of employees.

The concept of wellbeing is contested, and the wellbeing literature has been criticised because it has largely failed to consider the broader psychosocial view of work and instead focused on the individual’s wellbeing, laying ‘blame’ for poor outcomes on the individual’s capacity and characteristics, such as ‘resilience’ (Guest, 2017). A further critique of the wellbeing literature is the assumption that wellbeing is a homogenous experience across a homogenous worker, the typical ‘male’ worker. Scarce research has investigated the role of gender in wellbeing for employees. Along with disrupting the ‘ideal worker’ by interrogating gender, other absences include gender diverse/LGBTIQ+ and Indigenous workers, aging workers, migrant workers and those with a disability (Brougham, Haar, and Roche, 2015; Foster, 2017).

We argue that a shift in focus is needed to look at the role of the collective in relation to wellbeing: how can organised and informal groups of workers challenge the managerial wellbeing narrative that serves to individualise wellbeing and reduce it to individual coping strategies? This will provide the critical lens necessary to fully understand the processes and power play that impact on employee wellbeing at work and within organisations. Furthermore, this critical lens must include a gendered analysis that engages with specific conditions/practices that diminish women’s wellbeing at work, for example, sexual harassment, everyday sexism/racism and other insidious forms of oppression which would expand the debate about workplace wellbeing.

A logical step is to leverage research on unions and their role in the employment relationship, as unions’ primary goal is to protect and improve workers’ conditions and wages. Also to consider is the role of health and safety representatives which may also be collective agents. There has been considerable work on unions’ role in health and safety, parental leave entitlements and flexible work arrangements (Ravenswood & Markey, 2011; Williamson, 2014: Heery, 1996). Research has also looked at women’s representation and structures within unions themselves (Parker & Douglas, 2010; Brigden, 2013). Further research has also shown a connection between collective activity and general wellbeing at work – however this latter research has failed to take a gender lens to its analysis (Knudsen, Busck and Lind, 2011). Collectivism (be that formal union structures or otherwise) enables a voice in workplaces and may well provide a point of advocacy in the improvement of workers’ wellbeing (Brougham, Haar, and Roche, 2015; Macky & Boxall, 2009). But what of women, and gender diverse people and their wellbeing?

This stream seeks papers that critically analyse the role of the collective in employee wellbeing, in particular for women and wider gender diversity. While the collective is traditionally understood as union representation, critical papers that explore the role of other collective structures within work and organisations, such as staff networks or collective civil society groups (for example, Equal Pay Coalitions, women’s centres, workers centres) would also be welcome. Some suggestions are:

• Union role in wellbeing & gender diversity
• Union role in women, equality, harassment
• Unions & work/life balance
• Union ability to bring a critical eye – a strength of unions
• Disability and wellbeing/wellbeing programmes
• Historic perspective on women, collectivism and well being
• LGBTIQ+ issues and collectivism and well being
• Other collective groups such as staff networks & staff advocacy groups and their role in supporting wellbeing &

For submission details go to: www.mq.edu.au/events/gwosydney

For stream enquiries please contact Julie Douglas: julie.douglas@aut.ac.nz

References

Brigden, C. (2013) “A Fine and Self-Reliant Group of Women”: Women's Leadership in the Female Confectioners Union. Labour History: a journal of labour and social history 104, pp 49-64.

Brougham, D., Haar, J., & Roche, M. (2015). Work-family enrichment, collectivism, and workplace cultural outcomes: a study of New Zealand Maori. New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 40(1), 19-34.

Foster, D. (2017). The health and well-being at work agenda: good news for (disabled) workers or just a capital idea? Work, Employment and Society, DOI: 10.1177/0950017016682458.

Guest, D. (2017). Human resource management and employee well-being: towards a new analytical framework. Human Resource Management Journal, 27(1), pp22-38. Heery, E. (1996). The new new unionism. Contemporary Industrial Relations: A Critical Analysis, 175-202.

Knudsen, H., Busck, O., & Lind, J. (2011). Work environment quality: the role of workplace participation and democracy. Work, Employment and Society, 25(3), pp379-396.

Laine, P. (2015). Developing wellbeing at work: Emerging dilemmas. International Journal of Wellbeing, 5(2), pp91-108.

Macky, K. & Boxall, P. (2009). Employee well-being and union membership. New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 34(3), pp14-25.

Parker, J., & Douglas, J. (2010). Can women’s structures help New Zealand and UK trade unions’ revival?. Journal of Industrial Relations, 52(4), 439-458.

Ravenswood, K. & Markey, R. (2011). The role of unions in achieving a family- friendly workplace. Journal of Industrial Relations, 53(4), pp486-503.

Spence, G. (2015). Workplace wellbeing programs: If you build it they may not come…because it’s not what they really need! International Journal of Wellbeing, 5(2), pp109-124.

Williamson, S. (2014). Gender equality bargaining: Developing theory and practice.

Journal of Industrial Relations

20th August 2017

Researching diversity

Call for Papers

Association of Industrial Relations Academics in Australia and New Zealand (AIRAANZ)

2018 Conference Stream: ‘Researching Diversity’

7-9 February 2018, Adelaide, Australia

Convenors:

Dr Susan Ressia, Lecturer, Griffith Business School, Griffith University (s.ressia@griffith.edu.au)

Dr Shalene Werth, Senior lecturer, School of Management and Enterprise, USQ (shalene.werth@usq.edu.au)

Description:

The stream will address the ongoing issues related to gender and other differences as they are experienced in the context of the workplace. Visible and invisible identities can provoke particular reactions from colleagues when they are disclosed. Individuals who exhibit difference, for example, in their health status, migrant or racial background, gender, age or sexuality, risk being stigmatised or stereotyped in the labour market. Goffman shows that individuals with stigmatising attributes are ‘very careful to show that in spite of appearances they are very sane, very generous, very sober, very masculine [or feminine]… in short they are… nice persons like ourselves in spite of the reputation of their kind’ (1986, p. 110). Socially advocated ‘codes of conduct provide the stigmatised individual… with recipes for an appropriate attitude regarding the self’ (Goffman 1986, p. 110). Where individuals have an invisible stigmatising identity they might have a choice about disclosure and attempt to appear ‘normal’.  Normality ‘designates the state of affairs where everyone can get on with their business and the taken-for-granted world is not visibly shaken’ (Pinder 1995, p. 210). In the work environment there is an expectation of ‘normality’ that may exclude diversity groups, resulting in their experiences of less desirable workforce outcomes. These outcomes can be experienced in different and complex ways, when multiple visible and/or visible identities intersect. Thus, as Crenshaw (1989) describes, the intersection of various characteristics work in ways to produce inequalities and disadvantage for people who do not fit the dominant norm.

This stream invites papers that examine both the positive and negative experiences of diversity groups, which might include, but is not limited to, gender, culture, race, religion, migrant background, disability, health status, or sexual identity, and the intersections between them. The stream also welcomes papers that cover the various methodologies used in researching these diversity groups.

The aim of this stream is to expand into the broader field of diversity, and so reflects today’s social and cultural environments where we are witnessing a rapid change and transformation in the diverse nature of the workforce, while the workforce issues pertaining to these groups are often unacknowledged, misunderstood, overlooked or ignored.

Crenshaw, K. 1989 ‘Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: a black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics’, University of Chicago Legal Forum, pp. 138–167.

Goffman, E 1986, Stigma: notes on the management of spoiled identity, Simon & Schuster Inc, New York.

Pinder, R 1995, 'Bringing back the body without the blame? The experience of ill and disabled people at work', Sociology of Health and Illness, vol. 17, no. 5, pp. 605-31.

IMPORTANT DATES:

Abstracts
An abstract should set out the title and authors. The main body of the abstract (max 250 words) should then follow. It should succinctly set out the research questions, the methods used, the theoretical focus and the major conclusions. Please include references.

Deadline for abstract submission: Friday 15 September 2017.

Notification of acceptance: Friday 29 September 2017.

Paper proposals
If you wish to present a paper, please submit an abstract in accordance with the requirements set out above, but also indicating that you intend to submit a full paper. Please indicate whether the paper is to be refereed or non-refereed.

Deadline for paper proposal: Friday 15 September 2017.

Notification of acceptance: Friday 29 September 2017.

Submitted papers
If a paper proposal is accepted, the final paper must be submitted by Friday 27 October 2017 (refereed papers) or Friday 24 November (non-refereed papers). The paper should be between 3,000 and 5,000 words in length (including references, endnotes, tables, appendices and abstract). Please adhere strictly to the conference guidelines. For more information about AIRAANZ: http://www.airaanz.org/airaanz-conference-2018.html

20th August 2017

HRM Jiscmail

HRM researchers might be interested in joining the recently re-activated HRM jiscmail:  HRM@jiscmail.ac.uk.  The email list is for news relating to HRM research.  For details and to sign up please see: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=HRM. 

20th August 2017

New BUIRA Study Group: Equality and Diversity in Work and Employment

New BUIRA Study Group: Equality and Diversity in Work and Employment

The BUIRA AGM approved the creation of a new BUIRA study group dedicated to Equality and Diversity in Work and Employment. The group will be jointly convened by Ana Lopes (Newcastle University) and Jenny Rodriguez (University of Manchester).

This dedicated study group aims to be a forum for BUIRA members and associates to discuss issues related to equality and diversity in work and employment, as well as cognate topics (e.g. intersectionality, inclusiveness) and collectively shape the research agenda in this area within the field of industrial and employment relations. The group is looking to develop and sustain a network of academics and practitioners with an interest and work in the area of equality and diversity in work and employment. We invite BUIRA members and associates interested in these topics to join the group’s mailing list, and to send ideas and suggestions for future activities. To join the study group’s mailing list, please e-mail ana.lopes@ncl.ac.uk and jenny.rodriguez@manchester.ac.uk.

21st July 2017

ewly published via Palgrave: 'Employment Relations in Financial Services: An Exploration of the Employee Experience After the Financial Crash'

Newly published via Palgrave:  'Employment Relations in Financial Services: An Exploration of the Employee Experience After the Financial Crash' by Professor Gregor Gall, University of Bradford

See http://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9781137395375

Synopsis: This book describes and analyses the impact of the 2007-2008 financial crisis upon the working conditions of employees in the financial services sector in Britain. It tells the story of workers being made to pay the price for a crisis that was not of their own making, but nevertheless caused a deleterious impact on their employment security, remuneration and working conditions. Evidence of fighting back against this has been sparse so that the response of employees is best characterised as ‘fright’ (grudgingly working harder and longer), ‘flight’ (leaving the sector through redundancy), and ‘falling in line’ (accepting the diktat of performance managements systems).  Through this book we learn the reasons behind this acquiescence, with its detailed attention to topics such as the stunted development of labour unionism, the prevalence of union-management partnerships, and the occurrence of employment insecurity and labour shedding. Providing a valuable insight into the effects of the financial crash, Employment Relations in Financial Services will be useful to academics, students and also trade unionists.

Please consider ordering a copy for your library.

21st July 2017

Academy of Social Sciences

At the AGM it was agreed that BUIRA would become a member of the Academy of Social Sciences. For more information about the Academy see https://www.acss.org.uk/

The June newsletter can be accessed below.

https://www.acss.org.uk/academy-ebulletin-june-2017/

You can also subscribe to future bulletins, Twitter etc.

21st July 2017

BUIRA Conference 2017

Thanks to all who attended the 2017 BUIRA Conference and to the organising team at Portsmouth for hosting an excellent event.  Pictures and reports from the conference will be available in due course on the BUIRA website www.buira.org and our Facebook and Twitter accounts @buiraonline.  

11th July 2017

Contact details - Phil Almond

Hi all,

I have moved to Loughborough University, please update your contacts as appropriate.

Thanks,

Phil Almond,

Professor of International Management,

Institute of International Management,

Loughborough University London,

3 Lesney Avenue, The Broadcast Centre, Here East Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London E15 2GZ

p.almond@lboro.ac.uk

10th July 2017

Reminder: Special issue "Trade unions and democracy" in memory of Giulio Regeni - deadline 15th September

Dear colleagues,

We would like to remind you about the attached call for papers for the special issue of “Economic and Industrial Democracy” on “Trade unions and democracy” dedicated to Giulio Regeni. As many of you might know, Giulio was a Cambridge PhD student who was kidnapped, tortured and killed in January 2016 in Cairo during his research on Egyptian independent trade unions.

We want to honor his memory by collecting what we hope will be high quality research on the themes he was passionate about.

Please consider submitting to this special issue and share with anybody who might be interested in contributing. The submission deadline is on 15^th September 2017.

Kind regards,

Lucio Baccaro, Chiara Benassi and Guglielmo Meardi

10th July 2017

Civic and labour engagements as avenues for the integration and social cohesion of migrants: exploring the intersections of race, class and gender and marginalized identities

Civic and labour engagements as avenues for the integration and social
cohesion of migrants: exploring the intersections of race, class and
gender and marginalized identities

This seminar will focus on how identity and oppression mobilise people
to act, more specifically, how these different forms of oppression
intersect such that individuals are able to come together to act for the
common good.

Wednesday 6 September 2017: 10am-5pm

University of Leeds Business School, Room 1.02, Clarendon Road, Leeds,
LS2 9JT

All welcome
But please register in advance to assist with catering by using this
link: https://tinyurl.com/y7dngkgw

Programme

10.00:Coffee and registration

10.15:Welcome

10.30-11.30:Gabriella Alberti: Trade union strategies towards organizing
migrant workers in the UK: A call for a multi-level intersectional approach

11.30-12.30: Jean Jenkins: A Woman’s Work: Organisation and Resistance
in the Indian Garment Sector

12.30-1.30: Lunch

1.30-2.30: Joyce Jiang: The limitations of community organising: An
analysis of intra-community tensions among Polish immigrant workers in
South Somerset, UK

2.30-3.30: Heather Connolly: Class and identity politics in the
representation of migrant workers: comparing France and the UK

3.30-3.45pm: Coffee

3.15pm-4.45pm: Julie Hearn: Migrant cleaners fight for survival at the
University of London

4.45pm-5pm: Final comments

10th July 2017

Leverhulme workshop ‘The changing labour relations in globalised China’ 8th August

Leverhulme workshop ‘The changing labour relations in globalised China’ 8th August 

To mark the completion of the Leverhulme International Network project 'Collective pay determination and the changing labour relations in globalised China', we are going to hold a research workshop 'The changing labour relations in globalised China' on 8th August 2017 at Keele University. 

This one-day workshop will see the project team presenting major findings, with a number invited speakers taking part in presentations and discussions. Participants will include labour relations researchers based in a number of British and Chinese universities, and institutional representatives from trade unions and government bodies.

Confirmed speakers include Professor William Brown (Cambridge), Dr Tim Pringle (SOAS), Mr Malcolm Boswell (ACAS), Professor Chang Kai (Renmin University of China), Professor Qiao Jian (China Institue of Labor Relations), Professor Feng Xiliang (Capital University of Economics and Business, China), and so on. Professor Brown will deliver a keynote speech ‘The Emerging Industrial Relations of China’. A more detailed programme will be announced in due course.

All welcome. If you would like to attend please email the Network Facilitator Agnes Zhang (y.zhang1@keele.ac.uk) to confirm your place by 17 July 2017. Attendance is free but reservation will help us prepare catering arrangement.

Workshop venue: Salvin Room, Keele Hall, Keele University, ST5 5BG

Provisional time: 9:30 – 17:00

Date: 8 August 2017

10th July 2017

ILERA WORLD CONGRESS 2018: Call for Papers/Organized Sessions and Information for Scholarships

See http://www.ilera2018.org/ims/bbs/board.php?bo_table=notice&wr_id=4

10th July 2017

From Phil Almond and Anne-marie Greene re Professorial Redundancies at De Montfort University:

From Phil Almond and Anne-marie Greene re Professorial Redundancies at De Montfort University:

As many of you will be aware, on 3rd May all three professors in the Department of HRM, Leicester Business School at De Montfort University, were handed redundancy letters. The rationale given for these redundancies was that DMU wants to align research with areas of high student recruitment and growth in teaching, and “employment relations” is apparently not one of those research areas.

Many of you will note the irony of this happening in an institution that set up a research centre in comparative employment relations (CERC) less than a year ago, where the Department made the largest contribution to the REF2014 submission for UoA19 in the School and was on track to do so again for REF2021, and where members of the department have brought in substantial research income. The Department had a vibrant and productive research community within our research group CROWE (Contemporary Research in Organisations, Work and Employment)-one of the few places in the UK where an employment relations research group still exists. For a small group, we thought we were doing quite well. Obviously, in retrospect, too well.

This redundancy came as a complete shock to us, which we are all still now struggling to come to terms with. This has not been made any better by the utter brutality of the treatment of DMU in their consultations with us. We were forced to make a decision about voluntary redundancy within 3 weeks of the initial notification. There have been no proper objective reasons given for our redundancies. They have refused to allow us to continue being involved in the supervision of our PhD students, including those who are coming to their last year of registration. Finally, there has been no communication to the Department or the School about our redundancies.

A number of people in the field, have offered support in some kind of collective response, and we thank you for this. However, after what has been a very difficult period, we have each taken the decision to take voluntary redundancy as the only option in the circumstances. In many respects, we have no interest in trying to save our jobs within an institution that does not want the kind of research that we do. We will all be leaving the University on June 30th.

This is a very sad end to our time at DMU and a very sad outcome for employment relations as a field of study. We are extremely anxious about the future for our colleagues left behind in the Department and students of our courses left behind at DMU. You will no doubt have seen the recent advertisement for L/SL in HRM at DMU, including reference to research within the job description, only 2 weeks after our voluntary redundancy applications were accepted. The utter callousness of this action aside, we have to say that we cannot see how DMU can be a place where research active academics in our area could have a future, and would recommend to potential applicants and their mentors/advisers that they investigate the situation carefully.

…
Phil Almond will be joining Loughborough University London as Professor of International Management, and will remain active in employment relations research, including through his roles with the CRIMT network. CERC supporters will be contacted shortly about future developments.

Anne-marie Greene will be joining the University of Leicester as Professor of Work, Employment and Diversity on September 1st 2017 and can be contacted in the intervening period on profamg@gillam-greene.com
…

We will continue to defend research in our field in any way we can.

25th June 2017

BUIRA 2017 Conference Schedule

BUIRA 2017 Conference Schedule

BUIRA Conference 2017, Portsmouth, 28^th-30^th June

We are looking forward to to the BUIRA conference next week at the University of Portsmouth.Please check the updated version of the conference schedule by following this link xxxx

Further information about the conference is available here:

http://www.port.ac.uk/portsmouth-business-school/events/buira-2017/

25th June 2017

Message from Peter Ackers

I'm leaving De Montfort University at the end of this June & this is my new  email address: peter.ackers1@virginmedia.com

As you may be aware, all 3 Professors in the HRM Department were put into a Redundancy process.

I am taking retirement, but plan to continue writing on British IR & Labour History (broadly defined), including Hugh Clegg & Pluralism & Biography & Autobiography more widely.

19th June 2017

BUIRA 2017 Conference

BUIRA Conference 2017, Portsmouth, 28^th-30^th June

We are very much looking forward to welcoming BUIRA members next week to the University of Portsmouth for the 2017 annual conference.

The conference will include two plenary sessions. The first plenary, on the implications of 'Brexit' for employment relations, will take place in the afternoon of Wednesday 28 June, and will include contributions from Professor Charles Woolfson (Linköping University) and Hannah Reed (TUC). The second plenary, on the 'gig economy', will take place in the afternoon of Thursday 29 June, and will include contributions from Dr Alex Wood (Oxford), Uma Rani (ILO), Jeremias Prassl (Oxford) and Mags Dewhurst (IWGB).

The conference also features two special symposia: one on Kelly’s Rethinking Industrial Relations; and another on alternatives to state socialism.

Please remember to register for the conference in advance.

If you don't register by Thursday 22nd June, then we cannot guarantee that you will be able to attend the Conference Dinner on the evening of Thursday 29th June.

This is because the venue, which is in the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, is part of the Naval Base, and we are required to supply the names of delegates to the venue in advance (for security reasons).

Details of BUIRA 2017, including the conference schedule, can be obtained from the BUIRA website:

https://www.buira.org/conference/7

Further information about the conference is available here:

http://www.port.ac.uk/portsmouth-business-school/events/buira-2017/

Registration and campus accommodation can be arranged through the Portsmouth online store:

http://onlinestore.port.ac.uk/conferences-and-events/portsmouth-business-school/organisation-studies-and-hr/british-universities-industrial-relations-association-buira-annu

BUIRA Conference 2017, Portsmouth, 28^th-30^th June

We are very much looking forward to welcoming BUIRA members to the University of Portsmouth for the 2017 annual conference.

The conference will include two plenary sessions. The first plenary, on the implications of 'Brexit' for employment relations, will take place in the afternoon of Wednesday 28 June, and will include contributions from Professor Charles Woolfson (Linköping University) and Hannah Reed (TUC). The second plenary, on the 'gig economy', will take place in the afternoon of Thursday 29 June, and will include contributions from Dr Alex Wood (Oxford), Uma Rani (ILO), Jeremias Prassl (Oxford) and Mags Dewhurst (IWGB).

The conference also features two special symposia: one on Kelly’s Rethinking Industrial Relations; and another on alternatives to state socialism.

Please remember to register for the conference in advance.

If you don't register by Thursday 22nd June, then we cannot guarantee that you will be able to attend the Conference Dinner on the evening of Thursday 29th June.

This is because the venue, which is in the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, is part of the Naval Base, and we are required to supply the names of delegates to the venue in advance (for security reasons).

Details of BUIRA 2017, including the conference schedule, can be obtained from the BUIRA website:

https://www.buira.org/conference/7

Further information about the conference is available here:

http://www.port.ac.uk/portsmouth-business-school/events/buira-2017/

Registration and campus accommodation can be arranged through the Portsmouth online store:

http://onlinestore.port.ac.uk/conferences-and-events/portsmouth-business-school/organisation-studies-and-hr/british-universities-industrial-relations-association-buira-annual-conference

al-conference

19th June 2017

Register by June 21st for BUIRA conference

I wanted to draw your attention to registering early for the forthcoming British Universities Industrial Relations Association conference this year if you are attending.

The theme of BUIRA 2017 is the Changing Face of Industrial Relations: New Borders, New Frontiers. The conference will take place a little over a year after a referendum which resulted in a narrow vote in favour of the UK leaving the European Union (EU). Therefore it will provide an ideal opportunity for participants not only to explore and discuss the future of industrial relations in the UK outside of the EU, but also to consider the portents for industrial relations in Europe and around the world in general. New borders may be springing up, and existing borders hardening, but the frontiers of industrial relations continue to be pushed back, and extended, in some notable ways.

We have received an amazing set of papers that reflect these issues. We also have two fantastic symposiums with one entitled 'Rethinking Industrial Relations' which is a set of papers revisiting 20 years (!) of John Kelly's original contribution with John finalising the discussion in responding to all of the papers in the symposium. 

Also, our Guest speakers include:

Professor Charles Woolfson (Linköping University) and Hannah Reed (Trades Union Congress) on the implications of ‘Brexit’ for employment relations

Mags Dewhurst (Independent Workers Union of Great Britain) and Alex Wood (Oxford University) on the ‘gig economy’ and employment relations.

It is therefore imperative that if you want to attend the infamous BUIRA conference dinner you register for the conference before June 21st (or you will not be attending the dinner and that would be a real shame).

The main Conference Dinner venue is located in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.  Due to this venue also technically being a Naval base, names of all those attending the conference dinner will be required in advance for security reasons.

12th June 2017

job vacancies

There are posts for Assistant Dean for Research, Lecturer/ Senior lecturer in Human Resource management and professor/Reader in Human resource management.

On the Sheffield Business school Website on https://peopleportal.shu.ac.uk/pls/shlive18recruit/erq_search_version_4.search_form .

Vacancy-Assistant Dean, Research Sheffield Business School Academic Senior staff grade - £76,573 to £81,573 dependent on experience

Combining academic excellence with real-world relevance, Sheffield Business School (SBS) is growing in size, in our reputation and in our ambition - which is to be the leading applied business school in the UK. Energised by new senior leadership, a drive towards AACSB accreditation - building on our EPAS accreditations - and a new University strategy, this is a particularly exciting time to join us.

Research and knowledge creation are central to our strategy. With passion, a clear vision and strong academic leadership, you will develop and deliver an inclusive approach that:

• Further embeds research and scholarship as central aspects of being an SBS academic.
• Enhances our teaching delivery and the student experience.
• Significantly improves the business school's REF outputs in 2020/21.

As well as demonstrating strong collaborative leadership in research at a senior level, you will have excellent people skills and the ability to negotiate with and influence. These skills will be essential as you join our leadership team, making a vital contribution to the business school's wider strategic development.

VIDEO - PVC Dean, Professor Kevin Kerrigan, talks about the role and the type of person we are looking for.

Discover more about the business school, how we're transforming lives and our ambitions for the future.

For non-EU applicants, we may be able to offer a certificate of sponsorship for this job if required.

Follow sheffhallamjobs on Twitter for job alerts and information about what makes this a great place to work.

Contact Person :Professor Kevin KerriganContact Number :0114 225 3869Date Advertised :05-Jun-2017Closing Date :02-Jul-2017Employment Type :Permanent - Full TimeLocation :City CampusJob number :029582

12th June 2017

Conference schedule now available

The schedule for the 2017 Conference is now available ow.ly/kbbw30cvQZH

12th June 2017

Centre for People and Performance (Manchester Met University) Annual Summer Conference 2017 (includes expert guidance and advice on professional upgrading from CIPD)

CPP Summer Conference 2017

(hosted by Centre for People and Performance in the Faculty of Business and Law)

includes buffet lunch with expert guidance and advice on professional upgrading from CIPD

You will also have the opportunity to find out more about the research that CPP undertakes, and the services that our researchers can offer organisations and policy makers.

30th June 2017 (9am-4pm)

Business School G34

Keynote Speakers:

Ryan Cheyne - People Director at Rentalcars

Professor Richard Saundry – University of Plymouth - Innovation and Change in the Management of Workplace Conflict

Stephen Taylor – University of Exeter – Employment Law Update

Expert panel/Q and A sessions:

Brexit - responding to the HR challenges and opportunities

Social Media and Workplace Conflict: Problems or Solutions

Lynn Collins - Regional Secretary of TUC

Gemma Dale - Senior HR professional and author of 'Putting Social Media to Work'

David Jackson - Assistant Director of HR, Manchester Metropolitan University

Caroline Rayner - Employment Lawyer at Baines Wilson LLP

Gemma Wibberly - Institute for Research into Organizations, Work and Employment, University of Central Lancashire

The conference will bring together HR professionals and consultants, trade-unionists, researchers, students and other stakeholders to discuss the HR challenges and opportunities presented by the changing and sometimes uncertain times that organisations and workers face.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/hr-in-turbulent-times-cpp-summer-conference-2017-tickets-34354595520

12th June 2017

BUIRA International & Comparative Employment Relations Study Group Seminar

BUIRA International & Comparative Employment Relations Study Group Seminar

Date:     Wednesday, 14^th June 2017

Time:    1.30pm to 4.00pm (lunch available from 1.30pm)

Venue:   Keele Management School Training Suite, Room DW 0.30, Darwin Building,

              Keele University, ST5 5BG

Speakers:

Dr Christina Niforou (University of Birmingham)
Any role for ‘space’ in global labour governance? The contribution of the maritime labour convention in raising the floor of rights’.
 
Dr Stephen Mustchin (University of Manchester)
Union agency, transnational regulation and the formal and informal uses of International and European Framework agreements in multinational companies in Britain.

For further details, or to indicate that you would like to attend, please contact Carola Weissmeyer (01782 733603) or email c.weissmeyer@keele.ac.uk

11th June 2017

Proposed letter to The Guardian re Manchester staffing cuts

Message from Sian Moore s.moore@greenwich.ac.uk 

Proposed letter to The Guardian - 
As academic staff across UK universities we are appalled at the proposed staffing cuts at the University of Manchester (the Guardian 13.05.17) including but not limited to the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures, the Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health, and Alliance Manchester Business School. The proposals meant that 171 members of staff are set to be axed despite annual income from tuition fees exceeding £423 million (2015/16). The way in which these cuts are being made and the treatment of these committed teachers and respected scholars is abhorrent.
Unfortunately these plans are resonant of a Higher Education system now rooted in the market and underpinned by rampant managerialism that has little interest in critical public and inclusive education and a general disregard for the views or experience of academic staff. At the same time as cutting 171 jobs, the University plan to create 100+ posts for early-career academics. In our experience these positions are unlikely to offer security in contractual terms or opportunities to pursue scholarship.
In the context of Manchester University’s plans and our own current experience in universities, the necessity for a government committed to an alternative model of higher, further and adult education which will abandon a system based upon crude market competition and league tables and abolish student fees and debts has never been more urgent.
Professor Sian Moore, University of Greenwich
Professor Andy Danford, University of Leicester
Professor Phil Taylor, University of Strathclyde

To sign contact Sian Moore. 

Also link to petition

https://www.change.org/p/dame-nancy-rothwell-scrap-staff-redundancies-at-university-of-manchester?recruiter=68707485&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=autopublish&utm_term=des-md-no_src-reason_msg

1st June 2017

Conference: HRM in Uncertain Times: Economic Crisis, Brexit and Beyond

The conference aims to discuss the impact of different forms of uncertainty (e.g. economic, political) on the management of human resources (HR), as well as identify innovative HR practices and policy responses during turbulent times. 

 Newcastle University London Campus

102 Middlesex St

London

E1 7EZ

7/8 June 2017

To view the conference programme: http://bit.ly/2shUg7p

To register for the conference: ow.ly/Ylfx30bPkTF (Deadline 1 June 2017).

For general enquiries please contact Oana Mihut at the BAM Office on +44(0)2073837770, or at omihut@bam.ac.uk.

For specific enquires please contact the organisers stewart.johnstone@ncl.ac.uk and alison.glaister@york.ac.uk

31st May 2017

job vacancy

Dear colleagues

As PI of the ERC project “Labour Politics and the EU’s New Economic Governance regime (NEG)” https://www.erc-europeanunions.eu/ I am inviting applications for the following 5-year-long temporary positions (job descriptions attached):  

2 x Postdoctoral Research Fellow Level 1 in Labour Politics and the EU’s New Economic Governance Regime, UCD School of Business & Geary Institute for Public Policy

(The candidates should hold a PhD in Industrial Relations, Political Sciences, Sociology, Social Anthropology, European studies, or cognate disciplines and have research experience in the fields of European labour politics, EU governance, transnationalism, trade unions or social movements.  

Salary: €34,975 - €38,063 per annum

Closing Date: 17:00hrs (Local Irish Time) 5th June 2017

Please apply online at  https://www.ucd.ie/hr/jobvacancies/ using the external applicants tab and the reference number field “009343”.

(Provisional interview date: Friday 16 June 2017. Starting date: 1 October 2017.)

1 x Senior Social Scientist in Labour Politics and EU Governance, UCD School of Business & Geary Institute for Public Policy (Temporary half time)

Salary: €50,000 - €80,000 per annum pro rata (€25,000 – €40,000 per annum half time)

Closing Date: 17:00hrs (Local Irish Time) 5th June 2017

Please apply online at  https://www.ucd.ie/hr/jobvacancies/ using the external applicants tab and the reference number “009331”.

(Provisional interview date: Friday 16 June 2017. Starting date: 1 October 2017.)

30th May 2017

ILERA2018: Employment for a Sustainable Society: What is to be Done?

ILERA2018: Employment for a Sustainable Society: What is to be Done?

The world of work has dramatically changed over the last three decades. Traditional employment relations have weakened, and in their wake job insecurity and income inequality have proliferated. Changes are not limited to industrialized countries. New forms of employment relations have emerged in developing economies and they may be of worldwide significance for the future. A succession of global financial crises and subsequent economic stagnation has revealed the structural problems contributing to unstable employment relations and polarized labor markets. Bottom-line short-termism likely only worsens these problems. Yet stable employment with equal opportunity is essential for sustainable socio-economic development and prosperity.

The 18th ILERA World Congress addresses the challenging question of how to redraw employment relations in order to achieve employment for a sustainable society.

You are invited to send your contributions on the following subjects (follow the links for detailed explanations):

Track 1: Collective Voices and Social Dialogue for a Better Future

Track 2: HRM Challenges and Responses for the Changing Workplace

Track 3: Labor Market Dualization and Institutional Responses

Track 4: Workforce Diversity, Labor Market Inequality and Social Integration

Track 5: Work and Employment Relations in Emerging Market Economies

Track 6: The Future of Work

Notice

• It is authors' responsibility to ensure that all issues pertaining to copyright are addressed prior to submission.
• Authors are not allowed to modify their abstract information after the submission deadline, August 31, 2017.
• Abstract acceptance will be notified by September 30, 2017 via submitter's email. The submitter will be informed all future notification of abstracts by e-mail.
• If the presenter of an accepted abstract does not register by May 31, 2018, the abstract will be automatically withdrawn.

Content and Format

• Abstracts should be submitted online in English.
• Abstract includes separate sections; Preferred Tracks(s), Title, Author(s), Body of Abstract
• Title: Max. 30 words.
• Author(s): In case of multiple authors, enter the names of all authors in the order you wish them to appear in the abstract.
  * Please make sure to indicate the presenter and corresponding author.
• Body of Abstract: Max. 500 words not containing any illustrations, images, graphs or tables.

* Please do not repeat author(s) information in the abstract text section.

www.ilera2018.org

30th May 2017

BUIRA Conference 2017- Register Now!

BUIRA Conference 2017- Register Now!

Registration is OPEN click here to register and here to view the outline conference programme.

British Universities Industrial Relations Association Annual Conference:

The Changing Face of Industrial Relations: New Borders, New Frontiers

University of Portsmouth, Wednesday 28th - Friday 30th June 2017

Guest speakers include:

Professor Charles Woolfson (Linköping University) and Hannah Reed (Trades Union Congress) on the implications of ‘Brexit’ for employment relations

Mags Dewhurst (Independent Workers Union of Great Britain) and Alex Wood (Oxford University) on the ‘gig economy’ and employment relations

The Conference Dinner venue is located in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.

Further information about the conference, including an outline of the conference programme, is available on this page:

http://www.port.ac.uk/portsmouth-business-school/events/buira-2017/

Registration for the conference is open until 9^th June only using the link on this page:

http://onlinestore.port.ac.uk/conferences-and-events/portsmouth-business-school/organisation-studies-and-hr/british-universities-industrial-relations-association-buira-annual-conference

17th May 2017

Invites to host BUIRA conference 2018

Invites to host BUIRA conference 2018

We have already had some interest in hosting the BUIRA conference in 2018.  If anyone else would be interested in hosting our 2018 conference please do let us know asap at admin@buira.org

17th May 2017

pre-conference doctoral session on Critical Friendship in Employment Relations

This year the British Universities Industrial Relations Association is organising a pre-conference doctoral session on Critical Friendship in Employment Relations, which will take place on the 28th June from 9.00-13.00 in Portsmouth.

The will be led by Professor Melanie Simms (University of Leicester), Editor in Chief ‘Work Employment and Society’. The session is an exercise in critical friendship where all participants circulate a piece of written work which is then discussed in a supportive and collaborative environment. The piece of written work does NOT have to be a full conference paper (submissions can be as short as the participant wishes). It can be a section of a chapter, a draft paper or any document to discuss with peers.

This is a unique opportunity to get to know fellow PhD students, exercise critical thinking and receive constructive feedback.

The deadline for submission of written work is FRIDAY 9th JUNE 2017. Submissions should be made via e-mail: buiraphd@outlook.com

17th May 2017

Symposium on left-of-centre-parties and unions, 01.06.17, QMUL

Symposium on left-of-centre-parties and unions, 01.06.17, QMUL

Just like Labour in the UK, left-of-centre parties all over the world have historic ties to the trade union movement – ties aimed at helping both partners but that sometimes spark disputes between them, as well as attracting criticism from their opponents.

Whether rooted in a shared history, culture and ideology or more a 'marriage of convenience', in the post-war period the relationship between socialist, social democratic, and labour parties and unions supposedly helped parties win power and ensured the working class achieved huge gains in terms of full employment, the welfare state and labour market regulation. More recently, however, it’s been argued that the links between left-of-centre parties and trade unions have declined as their collaboration has become less mutually advantageous, not least as a consequence of structural changes in the economy and labour market.

This symposium, featuring some of the researchers involved and an expert set of discussants, is dedicated to discussing a newly published cross-national study of the ties between left-of-centre parties and trade unions, edited by Elin Haugsgjerd Allern (University of Oslo) and Tim Bale (Queen Mary University of London), that qualifies, and even challenges that widespread assumption.

Based on a brand new dataset, including organizational data gathered by an international team of experts, that study uncovers and explores what turns out to be considerable variation in the strength of contemporary organizational links between left-of-centre parties and unions in twelve different countries that have been democracies since at least the mid -to late-1940's. Testing a series of hypotheses on the importance and the impact of particular political systems and socio-economic factors, and on the costs and benefits for both parties and unions, detailed qualitative and quantitative analysis suggests that left-of-centre party-trade union links are stronger where trade unions are larger, denser, and more unified and where parties are less able to rely on the state to finance their organizational activities and electoral campaigns. Traditional partners that still have fairly strong links with each other seem to have greater incentives than others to maintain those links. Moreover, it remains the case that the links between parties and unions matter to policy, too.

The symposium will see participants gather for lunch at 12.30, after which there will be two sessions – one on country case studies and one on comparative angles – which will run until 17.30.  

Register here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/book-launch-left-of-centre-parties-and-trade-unions-in-the-twenty-first-century-tickets-34323700111

17th May 2017

**The gig economy: deal or ordeal? - Monday 5th June, King's College London** Mon 5 June 2017 09:30 – 19:30 BST Organised by the Centre for Digital Culture, Department of Digital Humanities (King's College, London) in collaboration with ENDL - European

-

17th May 2017

Conference -last call

17th May 2017

Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Equality and Diversity

8th May 2017

BUIRA Conference 2017- Register Now!

BUIRA Conference 2017- Register Now!

British Universities Industrial Relations Association Annual Conference:

The Changing Face of Industrial Relations: New Borders, New Frontiers

University of Portsmouth, Wednesday 28th - Friday 30th June 2017

Guest speakers include:

Professor Charles Woolfson (Linköping University) and Hannah Reed (Trades Union Congress) on the implications of ‘Brexit’ for employment relations

Mags Dewhurst (Independent Workers Union of Great Britain) and Alex Wood (Oxford University) on the ‘gig economy’ and employment relations

Further information about the conference is available on this page:

http://www.port.ac.uk/portsmouth-business-school/events/buira-2017/

Register for the conference is open until 9^th June only using the link on this page:

http://onlinestore.port.ac.uk/conferences-and-events/portsmouth-business-school/organisation-studies-and-hr/british-universities-industrial-relations-association-buira-annual-conference

8th May 2017

BUIRA Vacancies

NOTICE TO ALL MEMBERS

The BUIRA Executive Committee will have 4 vacancies as from July 2017.

As discussed and agreed at the AGM in Leeds 2016, the voting system for vacancies on the Executive Committee will be conducted differently.

As from this year we now invite all members to forward their interest in becoming a member of the BUIRA Exec Committee to BUIRA admin through admin@buira.org

All members are welcome to apply regardless of career stage i.e. early, senior etc

Please include a short biography of no more than 300 words and your reasons for applying for the vacant position.

2nd May 2017

Global Governance: An Idea Whose Time Has Come.

Global Governance: An Idea Whose Time Has Come.

Global Labour Governance: An Idea Whose Time Has Come

Manchester Industrial Relations Society

Shirley Lerner Memorial Lecture

Thursday 18 May 6pm-7.30pm

Speaker: Professor Jimmy Donaghey

Professor of Industrial Relations and Personnel Management

http://www.mirs.org.uk/index.html

Lecture Theatre LT33, Ground Floor
Manchester Metropolitan University Business School
All Saints, Oxford Road, Manchester M15 6BH (near Oxford Road railway station) http://www.mmu.ac.uk/travel/allsaints/

Free wine and nibbles buffet after the meeting 7.30pm

It is well established that globalisation has placed many pressures that have destabilised national systems of employment relations without establishing equivalent transnational mechanisms. While much of the focus to date has been on identifying these governance gaps, this presentation will argue that institutional innovations are emerging in response to this destabilisation.

Drawing on research into the response to the 2013 Rana Plaza disaster, it will examine the Accord For Building and Fire Safety in Bangladesh, a transnational initiative bringing together Bangladeshi unions, two global Union federations, over 200 western brands and four NGOs to improve workplace safety in the ready-made garment supply chain. It will be highlighted that the Accord demonstrates that developing a meaningful mechanism of global labour governance in this case required both institutional experimentation and significant actor-led innovations. Finally, the extent to which wider lessons can be drawn from the case and what questions remain unanswered about the evolving nature of global labour governance will be considered.

For further details of the Manchester Industrial Relations Society please  contact:

Professor Ralph Darlington, Salford Business School, University of Salford, Salford M5 4WT

Phone: 0161-295-5456; email: r.r.darlington@salford.ac.uk

Manchester Industrial Relations Society website: www.mirs.org.uk

Twitter: @ManchesterIRS

1st May 2017

new book

New Book: Introducing Employment Relations: a Critical Introduction

Oxford University Press has just published the 4^th edition of Introducing Employment Relations: a Critical Introduction by Steve Williams.

Further information, including details of how to obtain an inspection copy, is available from the OUP website: http://global.oup.com/ukhe/product/introducing-employment-relations-9780198777120?cc=gb&lang=en&

1st May 2017

Conference on Lay Members in Employment Tribunals

1st May 2017

Oral Labour History Day 2017

Oral Labour History Day 2017

Getting Going with Oral Labour History

Britain at Work (B@W) 1945-95 in association with British Universities’ Industrial Relations (BUIRA) IR History Group and Oral History Society (OHS)

Saturday 3 June 2017 11am-4.45pm

University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS

(opposite Madame Tussauds and nearly opposite Baker Street tube)

Room C279

For further details and to reserve a place, please email Michael Gold (m.gold@rhul.ac.uk) or Linda Clarke (clarkel@wmin.ac.uk)

Once again, the Britain at Work (B@W) group is organising an Oral Labour History Day. This year’s theme is about how to get going and continue with oral labour history, with examples from different projects and inspiring presentations from those engaged. The day will begin with an opening address by Alan Dein, broadcaster and oral historian, followed by round table introductions on projects in which symposium participants are involved. After lunch, there will be presentations concerning inspiring projects by the trade unions, BECTU and Unison, and by Glasgow University on the 1984/5 Miners’ Strike. The day will end with a Robert Wilkinson from the Walthamstow History Workshop who is an expert at obtaining funding and running projects. All those engaged in or with an interest in oral labour history, and particularly trade unionists, are welcome to participate.

B@W is an initiative to capture the memories of people at work between 1945 and 1995, some of which are to found at the TUC Library Collections held at London Metropolitan University (www.unionhistory.info/britainatwork)..

Programme:

10.30-11.00     Registration

11.00-11.15     Welcome and Introduction:

11.15-12.00     Keynote: Alan Dein, broadcaster and oral historian

12.00-13.00     Roundtable: Brief contributions from participants (if they wish), on who they are and their interest in oral labour history

13.00-14.00     Lunch:

14.00-15.00     Presentations

• Mike Dick (BECTU)
• Diarmaid Kelliher and Johnnie Crossan (Glasgow University: 1984/5 Miners’ Strike, Kent)

15.00-15.30     Discussion

15.30               Break

15.45-16.30     Robert Wilkinson (Walthamstow History Workshop) on Heritage Lottery Foundation – how to apply, followed by discussion and questions.

16.30-16.45     Closing observations (Joanna Bornat, Oral History Society)

1st May 2017

vacancy

Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Global Human Resource Management at Newcastle University

For further details please see:

https://vacancies.ncl.ac.uk/

1st May 2017

Employment Rights post brexit

WORK AND EMPLOYMENT RESEARCH UNIT SEMINAR SERIES

EMPLOYMENT RIGHTS POST-BREXIT

WEDNESDAY 10 MAY 2017. 15.00 – 18.00

ROOM QA065, QUEEN ANNE COURT, UNIVERSITY OF GREENWICH

This seminar considers the current state of employment rights in the UK and how this might change in the aftermath of withdrawal from the EU. We have three expert speakers including Professor Keith Ewing (Kings College London), Sarah Veale (ex-TUC, EHRC Commissioner and Visiting Fellow at the University of Greenwich) and Rachel Suff (Senior Policy Adviser, Employment Relations, CIPD). The seminar will include a presentation on brand new research by the CIPD on employer views of employment rights..

Professor Keith Ewing (Kings College London) will look at the implications of BREXIT for employment law generally.  How much of our employment law is EU sourced, and how do we protect the legacy of EU sourced rights?   What is the role of the European Court of Justice in the protection of employment rights, and what will be the implications of losing access to the Court?   What is the future direction of EU social policy and employment rights, and what will be the implications for the UK as a non member of the EU? Keith Ewing is Professor of Public Law at King's College London, and President of the Institute of Employment Rights.

Sarah Veale (University of Greenwich and EHRC) will consider in particular the potential impact upon discrimination legislation. The majority of legislation protecting people in the UK from discrimination on grounds of protected characteristics derives from the EU. The UK Government has said that the Great Repeal Bill will simply copy all EU legislation that affects the UK on to the domestic statute book. It will then examine all of it to see what it deems necessary to retain, or improve. Some on the right are arguing for a wholesale reduction in anti-discrimination law as part of this process. More progressive voices, such as the Equality and Human Rights Commission, argue to retain and improve the stock. The incremental introduction of anti-discrimination legislation in the UK has resulted in significant and positive changes in workplace culture. Its removal, or diminution, will lead to a deterioration in employment relations. Sarah Veale was Head of Equality and Employment Rights at the TUC between 2003 and 2015, when she retired. Since then Sarah has been a Commissioner on the Equality and Human Rights Commission, a member of the Regulatory Policy Committee, an Executive Committee member of the Institute for Employment Rights and Vice Chair of the Equality and Diversity Forum. Previously Sarah was a member of the ACAS Council and the Health and Safety Executive Board.

Rachel Suff (Public Policy Adviser, Employment Relations CIPD) will present new research on employers’ attitudes to employment rights. Brexit brings the whole question of the UK’s employment law framework to the fore. Do we have the right balance of regulation to both protect individuals at work and promote labour market flexibility for employers? New research, commissioned by the CIPD, explores employers’ attitudes to employment law, how employers translate the law into practice and its impact on the business. It asks whether there is a certain 'perception-reality gap', and whether or not employers' perceived barriers and attitudes to regulation are fully aligned to actual practice on the ground. The report also looks at key pieces of EU-derived employment regulation such as that relating to agency workers and working time to assess their effectiveness and future potential for reform. Rachel Suff joined the CIPD as a policy adviser in 2014, initially in a European role, to increase the CIPD’s public policy profile and engage with politicians, civil servants, policy-makers and commentators to champion better work and working lives. An important part of her role is to ensure that the views of the profession inform CIPD policy thinking on issues such as employment relations and health and well-being. As well as carrying out research on UK employment issues in collaboration with the CIPD's ER Network of employment relations specialists, she helps guide the CIPD’s thinking in relation to European developments affecting the world of work. Rachel’s prior roles include working as a researcher for XpertHR and as a senior policy adviser at Acas.

This is an open seminar and all are invited but please can you inform us if you are planning to attend from outside the University of Greenwich by contacting myself, Professor Geoff White, on wg08@gre.ac.uk.

HOW TO FIND US

Queen Anne Court is on the main University of Greenwich campus at the Old Royal Naval College. The nearest TfL station is Cutty sark on the DLR. The nearest mainline station is Maze Hill on the line from Cannon Street and London Bridge.

24th April 2017

Bargaining for productivity

24th April 2017

Central London BUIRA Seminar:

Central London BUIRA Seminar:

Changing employment status and new forms of work organisation,

Dr Jan Drahoukoupil (ETUI) on The Platform Economy and the Disruption of the Employment Relationship

Annie Powell (Leigh Day Law Firm) on The fight for workers’ rights in the digital economy: Uber and other cases

Friday 28 April 2017, 10.30am – 12.30pm, followed by buffet lunch

University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS

(opposite Madame Tussauds and nearly opposite Baker Street tube)
Room: C279 (lunch C287)

For further details and to reserve a place, contact Linda Clarke (clarkel@wmin.ac.uk)

This regular monthly seminar is focussed on the implications for employment and the labour market of the rapid development of new forms of working associated with digitalisation. Jan Drahokoupil (ETUI) will present the work he has been undertaking on production networks and the future of work, in particular the business model of a platform economy. He argues that this represents an extension of market mechanisms that has serious implications for workers, requiring particular measures including special protection, a framework for self-employment and an extension of collective bargaining possibilities. This will be complemented by Annie Powell who will speak about the reasons for the decision in the Uber driver case and its implications for other claims, including Deliveroo.

Jan Drahokoupil is a Senior Researcher at the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) in Brussels and coordinates research on digitalization. He has published a number of books and journal articles on European and transition economies, welfare state, and multinational corporations. He is also editor of two forthcoming special issues of Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research on digitalization and the future of work. His book publications include Transition economies: political economy in Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia (with Martin Myant), Wiley-Blackwell, 2011, The outsourcing challenge: organizing workers across fragmented production networks (edited), ETUI, 2015, and Flexible workforces and low profit margins: electronics assembly between Europe and China (edited), ETUI, 2016.

Annie Powell is a solicitor in the employment and discrimination team at law firm Leigh Day. She was recently involved in the successful Employment Tribunal claim by Uber drivers which found that Uber wrongly classifies the drivers as self-employed and is therefore acting unlawfully in denying them workers’ rights including the right to receive holiday pay and to be paid at least the National Minimum Wage.

This 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. These meetings can be full though so, if you would like to attend and to help forecast catering provision, please Contact: Professor Linda Clarke,  clarkel@wmin.ac.uk or

24th April 2017

job vacancy

Job vacancy: Assistant/ Associate Professor in Human Resource Management at Warwick Business School

Warwick Business School is currently inviting applications for the role of Assistant/ Associate Professor in Human Resource Management. We are looking for an internationally oriented, ambitious yet collegial scholar who will contribute to the existing research streams within the school’s Organisation and HRM group.

We especially welcome applications from researchers with the ability to publish at the very highest level, and who have the potential to generate research income and research impact.

Closing date for applications: May 14^th.

Further details can be found at:

Assistant Professor in Human Resource Management (78900-047)

Associate Professor in Human Resource Management (78931-047)

If you would like to discuss this vacancy further, please contact Kim Hoque, Head of the Organisation and Human Resource Management group: kim.hoque@wbs.ac.uk;  +44 (0)2476 524658

24th April 2017