Working Lives Research Institute
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 and to see more pictures click here.
To read the WLRI five year review, please 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 go here.
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 go to the UWT project page.
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.
For news items in previous years, please see the archives page.
