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WLRI News Issue 5, January 2010
Happy New Year from Working Lives, and welcome to our first electronic newsletter of 2010. We bring to your inbox updates on two major reports published; on the ‘French Social Model’ and on the ‘Changing role of Conciliation, Arbitration Mediation Services in Europe’; we highlight the winner of Labourstart’s photo competition, report from the Critical Labour Studies symposium; the ‘Striking Women’ study day; our teaching courses and much more besides. We hope to see many of you in the new year. Please forward this newsletter to your work colleagues, fellow students and interested contacts, encouraging them to subscribe to WLRI news by going here.
We encourage your feedback and comments on this service, so feel free to email us.
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WLRI publishes 2009 Annual Report |
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WLRI has had another thriving year, which we summarise for you in our Annual Report, 2009. Prof Steve Jefferys, Director of WLRI, said: “Last year has been hugely successful for Working Lives, with important contributions being made by our staff to many of the major debates of the day about restructuring, the use of agency workers and mobilising for fairness at work. We’re looking forward to building on our established reputation at the cutting edge of social research in 2010.” Please order hard copies of WLRI’s Annual Report by emailing us with your details.
Read the full story here.
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UNISON publish Migrant Workers Project Evaluation Report by WLRI |
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 The Migrant Workers Participation Project Evaluation Report, by Dr Sian Moore and Max Watson, was published by UNISON on 16th December 2009. Introducing the report, Dave Prentis, General Secretary, said: “UNISON has a proud history of using its collective strength to protect vulnerable workers. Migrant workers are particularly vulnerable to exploitation because of the problems they have enforcing their rights at work. For some time now many regions and branches have provided targeted support for migrant workers in the public sector. However, we need to get more migrant workers active in UNISON if we are really going to tackle the problems they face.”
Read more about this project, and download the full report here.
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Social dialogue and the changing role of CAMS in Europe |
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 Conciliation, Arbitration Mediation Services in Europe (CAMS).
The first report of the CAMS project has been published recently. The CAMS project aims to help social partner organisations understand the changing role of industrial conflict arbitration, conciliation and mediation in a European context where a general decline in collective action since the 1980s and a rising trend in individual social conflicts has seen the existing institutions providing conflict conciliation, arbitration and mediation services adjust their roles in relation to the social partners and to social dialogue.
See the CAMS website, and download the first report here
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CPD in Union Learning heads North |
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 The Certificate in Continuing Professional Development (CPD) in Union Learning continues to develop and looks set to launch a parallel course in the North West starting in February. A new cohort starts in February in London, so get in touch now. Current student, John Dougherty, Union Learning Rep with the RMT union, (based in Liverpool), said: "I am really enjoying the course and it has given me the opportunity to work and share best practice with other union activists from a variety of different trade unions. It has raised my awareness about how the learning agenda can have a positive influence on other areas of trade unionism such as organising and bargaining."
Read the full interview with John Dougherty in the 'RMT News' as well as comments from other students here.
For more info on the CPD in Union Learning, go here.
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Acas publishes research on use of migrant workers |
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 Acas has published two complementary reports on the employment of migrant labour and the impact on HR policy and practice, based on new research by leading academics in the field. Employer use of migrant labour motivations, experiences and HR responses focuses on the construction and hospitality sectors. It investigates the procedural and employment relations challenges surrounding the employment of migrant labour, with a particular focus on the impact on HR arrangements. A smaller complementary study by Harris and Tuckman focuses on three organisations in the East Midlands. Sonia McKay’s study highlights two opposing models of employment.
Read the full story here.
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EHRC workplace report Integration in the workplace |
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Emerging employment practice on age, sexual orientation and religion or belief.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission published this new report by Fiona Colgan, WLRI Associate and Director of COERC, with Sue Bond and Emma Hollywood of the Employment Research Institute, Edinburgh Napier University on the 8th October 2009. The report has focused on the three ‘new’ equality strands and has considered what workplace equality policies and practices assist employees from diverse backgrounds to become fully involved and included in their workplace.
Read the full story here.
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How transferable is the French social model? |
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The DARES project published a final report in October, entitled ‘How transferable is the French social model? The project, ‘French multinational companies and their influence on the evolution of industrial relations in Bulgaria, Hungary and Poland’, lasted from December 2005 to September 2009. This research provides a detailed analysis of the ways in which French multinationals operating in the banking, retailing, hotel and energy sectors of three significant countries of Central and Eastern Europe have influenced the industrial relations systems of their host companies and countries through the transfer of the ‘French social model’.
Read the full summary of the project and download the full report in French (with English annexes) here:
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LabourStart Photo of the Year 2009 competition |
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“A Bangladeshi boy works in a shipbuilding factory in down town. These factories employ young boys as apprentices without pay for the first few years. They work in extreme conditions without safety tools like gloves, goggles, and other protective gears. In exchange, they learn the skills of the trade. But this costs them loss of health and education...”
Read the full story here.
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Striking Women |
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A culmination of two years’ research in to the similarities and differences of the disputes at Grunwick and Gate Gourmet was a day workshop and exhibition at the Women’s Library, a resource centre of London Metropolitan University. The project was led by researchers from Leeds and Oxford Universities and on Saturday 28th November the workshop heard from a range of speakers on the subject. Linda McDowell, Ruth Pearson and Sundari Anitha gave interesting talks about the interviews they had conducted with women strikers from both disputes.
Read the full story here:
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Critical Labour Studies Symposium, 2009 |
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The Sixth CLS symposium was organised by staff from WLRI, Manchester University and SOAS and was held on the 21 and 22nd of November at SOAS. CLS was set up to bring together researchers and activists to discuss key features of work and employment from a radical and labour-focused perspective. It attempts to provide a link between the activities of trade unionists and university, and other researchers, which allows a broader and critical debate to emerge. CLS is different from other conferences in that we insist that presentations should include both a practitioner and academic presenting together.
Read the full story here.
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Ethnic Minority Representation at Work |
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In an attempt to understand the influence of sense of identity and social networks on how workers access support for problems at work, workers from three London boroughs: Kurdish workers in Hackney, South Asian workers in Ealing and Caribbean workers in Lambeth, were interviewed and asked to talk about their ethnicity and identity, and asked why they chose to describe themselves in that way. People generally spoke at length; and we got a range of very interesting responses.
Read the full story here.
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Visualising ‘community’: an experiment in participatory photography |
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 Research team members (Dr. Jane Holgate, Janroj Keles and Dr. Leena Kumarappan from WLRI, London Metropolitan University and Professor Anna Pollert at University of West of England) of the ESRC-funded research project on ‘Influences of identity, community and social networks on ethnic minority representation at work’ (EMRAW) organised a focus group with Kurdish individuals (with different age, gender, education and occupation background) to understand the way they feel, interpret, and make sense of their experiences in London through using images of Kurdish people taken by a professional photographer Jim Hodson and Hackney based Kurdish RenkArt.
Read the full story here.
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