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SPHERE is a three-year European Union project that investigates the formation and evolution of European cultures and identities rooted historically in specific occupational contexts with a distinct regional base.
To see the project page click here.
The Royal College of Nursing report 'The work-life experiences of black nurses in the UK', written by Dr Sonia McKay and Sukhwant Dhaliwal is now available.
To download a copy click here.
For more information click here.
Campaigner and journalist, Rahila Gupta spoke about her new book 'Enslaved', an important insight into modern day slavery, on Wednesday 6th February at the Working Lives Research Institute.
For more information click here.
The new Certificate in Professional Development (CPD) in Union Learning is recruiting its second intake from February 2008.
For more information click here.
Kim Moody spoke at the latest WLRI trade union seminar, on the 13th December 2007, on Globalisation and its effects on the US labour movement.
For more information click here.
The Working Lives Research Institute at London Metropolitan University has just launched the website for its Undocumented Worker Transitions (UWT) project. To view the press release please click the link below:
Professor Jane Wills, Queen Mary University of London and Andy Snoddy, Unite (TGWU) introduced the latest in the WLRI Trade Union seminar series, Thursday 29 th November.
Jane Wills explored the reasons why some unions are finding renewed impetus to develop closer relationships with non-labour organisations, using examples from London Citizens' London living wage campaign.
Andy Snoddy from Unite (TGWU) spoke about the advantages and difficulties of community/trade union link ups from a trade union perspective.
To listen to both presentations in full, and to view the Powerpoint presentation, click here .
The Working Lives Research Institute celebrated five years of successful research on social justice, 21 st November 2007.
The thriving work of the institute was commemorated at an informal gathering of invited associates, colleagues and friends of staff and ex-staff at the Doggett’s Coat and Badge.
Mary Davis, Deputy Director of WLRI, said of its work:
“For us the keystone and the cornerstone is that it's got to be socially useful. It's not any old work it's not any old consultancy. We like to service our constituent parts, which is obviously the labour movement, and is obviously progressive organisations.”
She continued:
“I think we've got a lot to celebrate. Most important we've been true, I think, to our mission, which was to conduct socially committed research. And we are committed and we have conducted that research and there is evidence of it.”
“Celebrate in what we've done, participate in what we do, and give us ideas for what you'd like to do in the future. You know what we stand for – you know it makes sense!"
Steve Jefferys, WLRI Director, added a toast: “To the next five years of the Working Lives Research Institute!”
To listen to the full speech, click here.
To download the file, right click on the link above, and select ‘save link as’, (or if you use Internet Explorer, select ‘save target as’), then save it to your desktop and listen in your preferred audio player when it had finished downloading.
To see more pictures click here.
To read the WLRI five year review, please click here.
To read the EMRAW Bulletin please click here.
Please click here for further details.
The Guardian covered the Audio Visual project's report on the 21st September 2007.
To read the full article please click here.
To read the press release click here.
To read the report click here.
A new Certificate in Professional Development is being launched in September 2007 aimed at trade union learning representatives and those members and officers who have a general interest in trade union education. The course is practical but also explores what is happening with lifelong learning in government policy and within an industrial context.
The course combines a mixture of dayschools, reading and written and group work which is geared around the needs of adult students.
For further details CLICK HERE
For details on the Modules CLICK HERE
Application form (needs to be returned to Stephen Cunningham
Centre for Trade Union Studies
DASS
London Metropolitan University
Ladbroke House
62-66 Highbury Grove
London N5 2AD
02071335163
The Working Lives Research Institute has started a European Framework Six research project that will explore the factors underlying migration flows, focusing on undocumented and semi-documented migrant workers and their transitions between different countries, jobs and statuses. The Undocumented Worker Transitions (UWT) project will consider the link between work and migration flows, what knowledge such migrants have of their host labour markets, how they find work, what work they do, what transitions between different jobs and statuses take place and what impact their working arrangements and migration have more generally in the host country.
For more information please click here
January saw the Working Lives Research Institute involved in two inaugural project meetings in Rome and Sofia.
The Italian research institute IRES is co-ordinating the GLO.R.I project (Globalisation and industrial relations) which is examining information and consultation rights in multinational companies in the chemicals and tyre sectors. The aim of this four-country project is to see to what extent information and consultation structures and procedures at local, national and European level help companies and their employees deal with restructuring.
The four partner organisations will each undertake two case studies – one in each sector – and produce reports on each for discussion at a final conference in September. The German and Polish partners are the SOFI sociological research institute at the University of Göttingen and the Bernard Brunhes Polska (BBP) research consultancy, based in Warsaw.
Restructuring is also the central theme of the second project which is looking at socially responsible restructuring in Bulgaria and Romania. The main project partners are from France, Bulgaria and Romania and the WLRI will be contributing its expertise, along with four other organisations, based on its recent involvement in the major two-year MIRE project on restructuring. A key element of this new project will be forums and training sessions for the social partners in Bulgaria and Romania.
The Mayor of Haringey, Gina Adamou, opened a photographic exhibition documenting the lives and histories of people coming from across the world to live in North Tottenham. Working Lives Research Institute carried out the project with funding from Haringey Council. Using photos and interviews, it explores how economic change and immigration has shaped the identity and communities in the area. The exhibition can be viewed at the Neighbourhood Resource Centre, 177 Park Lane, London N17 0HJ, Monday to Friday from 9 am to 5 pm. It will then be shown at other venues and used by local schools and community organisations to encourage greater understanding about the cultural diversity and social history of the area.
This new journal aims to create a single authoritative source of information on the new global division of labour, combining theoretical analysis with the results of empirical research in a way that's accessible to both the research community and policy makers. This journal will be published twice a year, with each strongly themed issue appearing separately as a book.
A conference to launch the HE ESF funded report took place in the Graduate Centre, London Metropolitan University on 9-6-06. It provided a major opportunity for employers, trade unions, LGBT organisations, government and other stakeholders to discuss lessons from the research, share experiences and consider how to develop best practice. Speakers included: Brenda Roper, ACAS; Alayne Berisford, Barnardo’s; Khi Rafe, Black Lesbian UK; Jo Randell, BT; Fiona Colgan and Chris Creegan, COERC, London Metropolitan University; Liz Grant, IBM; Khizar Hayat, Leeds City Council; Pat Oakley, London Fire Brigade; Julie Newman, Regard; Katherine Cowan, Stonewall; Peter Purton, TUC; Mark Bell, University of Leicester. A full copy of the research report can be found at :
www.workinglives.org/docs/ESF_LGB_Report_5_June_2006.pdf
The Working Lives Research Institute was mentioned in The Observer, 16th April 2006. The article examined a CRE research report commissioned in 2005 by Ashika Thanki and Sonia McKay of the WLRI. The report uncovered more alarming evidence of low-level racism. It examined why ethnic minorities left print journalism, drawing also on conversations with those who still work in the profession.
Please click here to read full Observer article.
Representatives from academia, government agencies, employers, and the trade unions met on 31st March 2006, to discuss employment and people management issues under the rubric of 'voice and value'. The focus for this year's well-attended conference was to explore the extent to which implementation of the Information Consultation of Employees Regulations 2004, that came into force on April 6th 2005, had met intended objectives. This annual gathering is organised jointly between the CIPD, LSE and London Met (MPD). A full report of the day’s exchanges may be downloaded here ( PDF).
A major study of racism at work involving researchers and trade unionists in 5 European countries has completed it's investigation. Its aim was to examine the role that trade unions could and should be playing in combating racism. This pamphlet draws on the research undertaken in Britain and is presented as a contribution to the continuing fight for justice for black workers.
A copy of the pamphlet costs £5. If you wish to order one please contact:
Wilf Sullivan, TUC Race Equality Officer, Congress House,
Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3LS. Telephone: 020 7467 1259; Fax: 020
7467 1333; e-mail: wsullivan@tuc.org.uk
The first is from the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions in Dublin. It will start in a few months and will be an on-going commitment to provide information and reporting services at EU-level. This is to work with two German research groups and the Institute for Labour Foundation in Bologna, Italy to provide the news service on IR and work and employment standards and industrial change that is on the Dublin Foundation web-pages.
The second is the Lisbon Agenda project which starts now and lasts until September. This project is to undertake 15 four-page (two interview) UK company case studies highlighting themes from the Lisbon Agenda (of highlighting better practice to create an 'attractive workplace for all') - the aspects are 1) Fostering employability; 2) Increasing labour market participation of underemployed groups; 3) Integrating people at risk from exclusion into the labour market; 4) Making work pay; 5) Towards a balanced flexibility; 6) Business creation and entrepreneurship.
In October 2005, Ashika left Working Lives to volunteer as a delegate for the Red Cross in the Tsunami-hit region of Banda-Aceh in Indonesia. She is working on a programme to construct houses and help people rebuild their lives after the disaster just over a year ago.
Comedian and columnist Mark Steel returns with more lectures on historic figures that radically changed the political and cultural landscape of the Western world.
A co-production between BBC FOUR and the Open University, The Mark Steel Lectures feature subjects who have a global appeal across the fields of art, literature, science and politics.
Working Lives' Professor Mary Davis speaks as an expert on Sylvia Pankhurst. Please CLICK for details.
The first Europen meeting of the CAWA project was held at the Working Lives Research Institute over the 19th and 20th December 2005. Ten delegates attended from Bulgaria, Greece, Spain, Sweeden, and the UK.
Christine Wall and film maker Karen Livesey have gained Lottery Funding to make a short film about the women who worked on Waterloo Bridge during the Second World War. The bridge was designed by Giles Gilbert Scott, engineered by Rendell, Palmer and Tritton with Lind and Co. the main contractors. Acute wartime labour shortages resulted in many women working on the bridge. Although the contribution women made on the Home Front in the munitions factories, Land Army and the services is well known, their participation in the building industry has not been recognised. Using archive material from the Imperial War Museum together with oral history testimonies, this film hopes to reveal the important role women played in the construction industry during the war.
Karen and Christine are both part of Concrete History a group
of women historians and film makers. If you are interested in the project
please contact us:
c.wall@londonmet.ac.uk tel. 0207
320 3026 or
karenliveseyhome@yahoo.co.uk
mob. 07947518868
Photograph of Waterloo Bridge: English Heritage. Photos of women workers:
Imperial War Museum Photograph Archive.
Bridget Henderson from Working Lives has won funding for a major research project from the EU, entitled ‘Creative Approaches to Workforce Ageing’. This project aims to develop and disseminate creative approaches to workforce ageing among disadvantaged workers. The project partners come from a cross-section of European employment systems with both higher and lower labour force participation rate economies: Austria, Spain, Sweden and the UK. Together with observers from Bulgaria they will develop a European code of innovative practice to be disseminated widely within the target sectors and regions, ensuring workforce ageing receives a higher priority.
Announcing the publication of "Labour in a Global World". This book gets behind much generality about globalisation to examine the production of relatively familiar commodities such as refrigerators and ovens in different countries. By considering a range of countries - China, Taiwan and South Korea, South Africa, Brazil and Turkey - it makes a substantive contribution to the understanding of the diffusion of management methods, the role of the state in employee relations, the nature of trade unionism and the impact of social structure on production relations.
Please find full Financial Times book review on Surhan Cam's webpage
France’s leading expert on pensions, Professor Bernard Friot, delivered his verdict on the proposed EU constitution and its implications for wage relations at two public lectures organised by London Metropolitan University’s Working Lives Research Institute and London British Universities Industrial Relations Association, on 7 and 14 June.
He explored the premise that wages are above all the means by which value is assigned to labour, addressing key questions in the analysis of wage relations, for example which forms of labour are most valued, how labour is measured and the types of payment which give it value. He also compared the French wages and pensions system with that of the UK, Sweden and Germany.
The proposed EU constitution was decisively rejected by the
French working classes, fiercely protective of the generous social benefits
they enjoy. 80% of blue-collar workers and 60% of white-collar workers voted
‘non’. Professor Friot explored the reasons behind this, with
reference to wage relations and the perception that a yes vote would signify
further subordination to capitalism.
edited by John Russo and Sherry Lee Linkon
ILR/ Cornell University Press 2005
Announcing the publication of a major new collection of essays on working class life and culture. In John Russo and Sherry Lee Linkon’s book, contributors trace the origins of the new working-class studies, explore how it is being developed both within and across fields, and identify key themes and issues. Historians, economists, geographers, sociologists, and scholars of literature and cultural studies introduce many and varied aspects of this emerging field. Throughout, they consider how the study of working-class life transforms traditional disciplines and stress the importance of popular and artistic representations of working-class life. Contribution from Tim Strangleman of Working Lives.
Paper 0-8014-8967-9
Cloth 0-8014-4252-4
Links: www.cornellpress.cornell.edu
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‘Guinness was good for us’ is a photographic and oral history project being carried out by Tim Strangleman and Bridget Henderson from Working Lives Research Institute alongside photographer David McCairley. Over the next 4 months they will record in pictures and words the experience of work at the Guinness Park Royal Brewery in West London which closes this summer after 70 years of production. For more information about ‘Guinness was good for us’ please contact Tim Strangleman t.strangleman@londonmet.ac.uk
2004 was a fantastic year for Working Lives. The institute secured many new projects and the number of staff grew to 30. Due to our rapid expansion we have relocated to London Metropolitan University's Jewry Street site. We are located very close to Aldgate tube, right in the heart of the City. For our full contact details please click here.
The East of England Development Agency (EEDA) has commissioned the first piece of comprehensive research to identify the skills of migrant workers in the East of England. The study by the Working Lives Institute at London Metropolitan University aims to find out the scale, geography and the characteristics of the current migrant workers in the region. The research is believed to be the first of its kind as it aims to detail the skill base of migrant workers within the region.
If you would like further information or to take part and complete a survey, please follow these links.
This
year's Annual Peace Lecture is being given by Professor Mary Davis, Deputy
Director of Working Lives, on 26th October. The title of the lecture is"The
changing nature of Nationalism and the effect of a Unipolar World Order on
regional conflict: Israel and Palestine: Politics and History".
This event is to be held in St. Mary's Guildhall, Coventry.
Please visit the Coventry City Council Website for more information.
Dr Sian Moore and Dr Sonia McKay of the Working Lives Research Institute were recently published in the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Employment Relations Research Series (NO.26) with their report entitled 'The content of new voluntary trade union agreements 1998-2002'. The report forms Volume 1 of a two part series and provides an analysis of new agreements and case studies.
Please visit the DTI website to review the report in full.
Tim Strangleman and Steve Jefferys from Working Lives along with Jane Martin from Education at London Metropolitan University have won funding for a major three-year research project from the Economic and Social Research Council under its Identities and Social Action programme. The project, ‘Does work still shape social identities and action?’, was one of 25 successful applications from an initial 330 bids. The study questions the extent to which employment has and still does shape identity formation and acts to inform social action.
more »
Ten individuals nominated by WLRI attended the European Summer University on Work in Nantes, France at the end of August. The group included several Researchers from the institute as well as a representative from both the TUC and GMBU. This first time event was attended by 250 researchers and social actors from across Europe. It was part-funded by the French government, the Nantes municipality and the European Union. The Working Lives Research Institute is one of the ten sponsoring partners. For further information on this event please visit the UET web site. To read an article by WLRI researchers who attended the UET please click on the link below.
more »
Jane Holgate has been awarded a Postdoctoral Fellowship by the Economic and Social Research Council for the 2004/2005 academic year. Jane will be based at the Working Lives Research Institute at London Metropolitan University and the Geography Department at Queen Mary, University of London, whilst completing her research entitled 'Black and minority ethnic workers in the labour market: challenges for trade union organisation'.
more »
The Working Lives Research Institute is pleased to announce the launch of Tim Strangleman's much awaited book.
more »
On June 3, WLRI doctoral student Louise Raw gave her first public lecture on her research into the important links between two groups of courageous ‘Eastenders’, the women of the 1888 Bryant and May strike and the men of the Great Dock Strike of 1889. Appropriately enough the venue, the Museum in Docklands, is situated on the former West India Dock, where the dock strike began. Louise was delighted with the attendance and response to her lecture ‘A Match to Fire the Docks’, which curator Dr Tom Wareham said was one of the most successful and interesting yet given at the museum.
more »
A European Union Network meeting of social researchers met with sociologists from China in Brussels on May 5-7 2004. The conference was called ‘Globalisation seen from Europe and China’, and was organised by Mateo Alaluf of the Sociology and Work Department of ULB (Free University Brussels).
more »
WORKS
(Work organisation & restructuring in the knowledge society), the research
bid inspired by Visiting Professor Ursula Huws, and submitted by her colleagues
at HIVA in Belgium, has just been evaluated top of the class for a Framework
6 European Project. The project focuses on changes in work and society, and
involves 19 partners across the new Europe. This success brings a substantial
grant to the WLRI and means that Ursula will join the team as a permanent
staff member for the duration of the 4 year project. Congratulations Ursula!
Tony
Benn was the guest of honour at a reception held at Congress House on Monday
23rd February 2004 to launch 'The Union Makes Us Strong: TUC History Online',
a partnership initiative between London Metropolitan University and the TUC
to open up access to the TUC Library Collection.
The Collections can be viewed at www.unionhistory.info
more »
Working
Lives Research Institute has won a major research grant from the European
Social Fund for two projects over the next two and a half years. One looks
at age discrimination against men of 50 and over and the other project compares
the experiences of labour market discrimination faced by refugees and black
and minority ethnic workers.
