Working Lives Research Institute
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| Workings Lives News, Issue 10, February 2012 Researching the world of work in the current climate is equally as exigent and as essential as ever before. Working Lives is still going strong and in our tenth electronic newsletter we share with you some highlights of our latest news and forthcoming events. New projects begin, whilst completed projects publish their findings; students give feedback, and our teaching programme expands. In late 2011 we said our fond farewells to Sian Moore and Tessa Wright, and we wish them well at Leeds and Queen Mary's, respectively. This August we will be celebrating a full ten years of researching working lives in the 21st Century, so watch this space for special events to mark the occasion and for a flavour of that decade read our the latest WLRI Annual Report 2011 online. Don't forget to 'Like' us on Facebook – comments and feedback always welcome. |
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| Legal experts discuss Precarious Work and Social Rights | ||
 On 2 December 2011 legal experts from the 12 countries participating in the EU funded project , ‘Precarious work and social rights’, met in London to discuss a number of key issues related to the project. The first of these was around the concept of precarious work, with legal experts discussing this in relation to their country specific laws and practices. They addressed whether precarious work was associated with specific forms of employment relationship and what these were, or whether account had also to be taken of wider sociological issues like the degree of security, choice or associated risks experienced by workers. Read the full story here. |
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| Final report published: ‘Turning a Blind Eye: The British state and migrant domestic workers' employment rights’ | ||
 The final report of the Migrant Domestic Workers Employment Rights project, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, was published in January 2012. ‘Turning a Blind Eye: The British state and migrant domestic workers' employment rights’ by WLRI’s Nick Clark and Leena Kumarappan was the result of an investigation into Migrant Domestic Workers’ (MDWs) employment conditions and the enforcement of their employment rights. The researchers used Subject Access Requests to the UK Border Agency (UKBA) to gather written terms and conditions of employment lodged by employers applying for or renewing workers' visas, interviews with domestic workers and a survey of migrant domestic workers’ pay and conditions (conducted by Unite the Union). The project summary, key findings, conclusions and the full report can all be found online here. |
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| Precarious work amongst students in Europe | ||
 An international research team led by WLRI has won funding from the European Commission to look into the paid work done by university students during their studies. The Commission are funding a series of projects looking into precarious work in the EU, and ways of improving the social rights of the workers involved. The study will be conducted across 7 member states (Czech Republic, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Latvia and UK), and will include an online survey conducted amongst university students. This will ask about the types of work carried out by students during and between terms – examining issues such as occupation, industry, hours of work (and variability), hourly pay, taxation & social security, documentation (such as contracts and wage slips), and work-related problems encountered. The survey will be supplemented by face to face interviews with students working in "precarious" jobs, and key respondents such as student and trade unions, employers and university administrations. See here for more information. |
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| Britain at Work, Voices from the Workplace 1945-95 | ||
 Britain at Work, Voices from the Workplace 1945-95 is a nationwide oral history programme set up by historians, social scientists, community history groups and librarians of labour history collections. Led by the TUC Library Collections at London Metropolitan University, it aims to collect memories of the working lives of men and women 1945- 95. This includes accounts of their work and their trade union activities. It will act as an umbrella for an increasing number of local, regional or sectoral oral history projects. Read the full story here. This project was launched at a special event at the TUC here. |
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| Restructuring in the public sector - still bad for your health? | ||
 Public sector employees across Europe are now facing major restructuring in response to the 2008-10 financial crisis and recession. In the workplace the consequences are often experienced in increasing open or covert conflict and/or greater stress with impacts both on employees and their managers. The HIRES Public project, funded by the European Union DG Employment, explores how social partnerships manage the health risks associated with restructuring in the public sector across seven EU countries. The final reports of the project, including two case study reports and a trajectory report for each country can now all be found online here. |
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| UNDOCNET project advisory group has its first meeting |
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   Researchers at two Londonuniversities are researching the labourmarketexperiences and aspirations of London’s undocumented migrants from three minority ethniccommunities.The research, which focuses on Chinese, Bangladeshi and Turkish (including Kurdish) migrants, explores the social networks which undocumented migrants utilise and their decisions to use or not to use co-ethnic networks in their search for work in and out of ethnic enclaves. An important aspect of the research is that it will also look at the motivations of employers in ethnic enclave employment, in relation to the employment of undocumented migrants. The researchers are keen to get in touch with undocumented migrants and with employers who would be prepared to tell their stories, in complete anonymity. Read the full story here. |
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| WLRI 'Professional Doctorate: Researching Work' bucks the trend and recruits well | ||
| Our first cohort of 12 Professional Doctorate students (2009) are now completing the final module in the taught part of their programme. From February they will embark upon the independent study part of their Doctorate. These students were joined in October 2011 by a new group of 12 Doctoral students, who have just spent their first learning block with the Institute. The two groups will be meeting each other frequently and making for a vibrant research community at Working Lives. Dr Cilla Ross is now responsible for leading the programme in place of Dr Sian Moore - who we are very sorry to lose. Dr Ross said (read the full story). |
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| Certificate in Professional Development: Union Learning | ||
| The CPD in Union Learning, which has been running in Leeds at unionlearn, completed in December 2011. However its sister programme which runs in London on a rolling basis has recruited afresh and is now running with a group of ten students. The current module 'The Struggle for Workers Education' is in progress and the next module, 'Globalisation and Lifelong Learning' begins in February 2012. Go here for more information on the CPD in Union Learning, or contact: workinglives@londonmet.ac.uk |
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| WLRI 'leaves no stone unturned', students' feedback | ||
 "The teaching team here is very sympathetic to the various places that people come from both in terms of their experiences and the jobs that they do. And I would say that they probably leave no stone unturned in actually trying to bring people along to some sort of accommodation with what this kind of work requires. It's very impressive." We asked the first cohort of Professional Doctorate students why they chose to study with Working Lives at London Met University. You can read their testimonials here. |
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| ACAS publish WLRI research: 'The future implications of migrant labour for employment relations' | ||
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| WLRI publish 2011 Annual Report | ||
| Steve Jefferys, in the Director's Introduction, said: "It is exactly ten years ago since Mary Davis (of the Centre for Trade Union Studies), Chris Coates (of the TUC Library Collections) and myself, a new Research Professor in the University of North London’s Business School, made the case for seed-corn funding to establish a Working Lives Research Institute at what became London Metropolitan University on 1 August 2002. (...) Today, as unemployment is once again rising to levels where it threatens not just to damage the lives of those who are without work, but to add insecurity, stress and fear to the lives of those still working, the relevance of our continuing to research and teach about work and social justice is as important as ever." Read the full annual report as an interactive page turner here. |
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