This article maps the major changes taking place in academic work within the broader context of the neoliberalisation of universities. Recognising the great variability in the form and pace of neoliberalisation across institutions and national contexts, the article identifies a set of features and indicators to aid in the comparative assessment of the extent and effect of neoliberal processes at different

This article critically challenges the findings and assumptions of mainstream job polarisation literature. Based on the European Working Conditions Survey data and on the Job Demand-Control model, which allows for capturing the organisational dimension of jobs, we examine the patterns and evolution of occupations in 22 European countries from 2005 to 2015. Instead of pervasive job polarisation, we

The COVID-19 pandemic has created economic crises and considerable loss of employment throughout the world. In the Australian context, social distancing restrictions and business closures contributed to a dramatic increase in unemployment, with 780,000 people losing work within weeks of the first COVID-19 outbreaks. Job losses were concentrated in casualised industries such as retail, recreation, arts

Platform work is often advocated as offering freedom of work to labour. Contesting this claim, this article undertakes a comparative analysis of the pros and cons of food delivery platform work prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic, and argues that the freedom of food delivery platform workers is essentially an ‘illusory freedom’. In reality, platform work has only changed mechanisms through which

The coronavirus pandemic has brought industrial relations policy to the centre of attention in many countries. In 2020, the Australian government convened tripartite bodies to address policy in several areas, one being for agreement-making to cover labour on ‘megaprojects’. This initiative revisited criticisms of unions for driving costs up and productivity down on these worksites, the most expensive

In investigating recent changes to the automotive industry production process, such as modularisation, our work emphasises the process of fragmentation of production as a configuring element of inter-firm power relationships, and as an explanatory element in working conditions. From a theoretical framework focused on power relations, we analyse by way of a selected case study how the capabilities of

In the COVID-19 pandemic, people’s dwellings suddenly became a predominant site of economic activity. We argue that, predictably, policy-makers and employers took the home for granted as a background support of economic life. Acting as if home is a cost-less resource that is free for appropriation in an emergency, ignoring how home functions as a site of gendered relations of care and labour, and assuming

Although collective bargaining is essentially a communication process, the role of language (as distinguished from discourse) in bargaining exchanges has received little attention from industrial relations scholars. Building on the work of Karl Popper, this article proposes a decomposition of language into functions and values and analyses their relevance when parties to a collective bargaining encounter

Before the COVID-19 pandemic erupted onto the world stage, a new narrative was apparently beginning to emerge about the impact of i4.0 and new technologies in general, and three-dimensional printing in particular, on the future of work and employment. This was to have particular geographical implications for the manufacturing sector in particular. Proponents of i4.0 also suggested that this process

This article assesses the regulatory steer provided by the Maritime Labour Convention 2006, against the research evidence as to what works in making for effective worker representation and consultation on occupational safety and health. Based on the testimony of seafarers and regulatory agencies, it demonstrates that the Maritime Labour Convention provisions lack the necessary elements for an effective

Andrew Cumbers begins this vigorously argued and highly convincing book by pointing to one major case of the ongoing retreat from democratic control over the economy – the decision in the neoliberal age to make central banks ‘independent’ (of parliamentary control, not of the financial markets that they are supposed to regulate). In his brief 14-page introduction, he sets out his ‘three pillars’ of

The 10 chapters of this important and scholarly book in the Oxford Labour Law series fall into three parts. The first (chapters 1–3, pp. 1–50) establishes the case for comprehensive and effective regulation of informal work, and sets out the general principles that would allow this to be attained. The second (chapters 4–7, pp. 51–121) provides four detailed single-country case studies of the exploitation

This article explores the relationship between precarious employment and seafarers’ control over the scheduling and location of their work, and considers the implications of this relationship for their occupational health and safety. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with 20 permanently and 17 precariously employed seafarers. In contrast with those on permanent contracts, seafarers employed

Despite growing interest in proposals for a universal basic income, little advance has been made in implementation. Here we explore policy options for an Australian Basic Income. Our analysis responds to concerns that Basic Income is both too expensive and too radical a departure from existing welfare state structures to be a feasible policy option. Drawing on policy and Basic Income scholarship we

Using an administrative dataset from the Ontario Ministry of Labour, we investigate three hypotheses about employment standards violations among franchised businesses: (1) franchisees have a higher probability of violating employment standards than other businesses, (2) franchisees have a higher probability of monetary/wage-related ES violations than other businesses, and (3) franchisees have a lower

This article argues that society is not a thing. It is abbreviated and adapted with permission from a public lecture, titled There Is No Such Thing as Society: Margaret Thatcher, Ludwig Wittgenstein and the Philosophy of Social Science. The original was presented by Gavin Kitching to the Cuadernos de la Catedra Ludwig Wittgenstein at Universidad Veracruzana, Mexico, in March 2019. JEL codes: A12, A13

Higher education enrolment and graduation rates have increased rapidly inter-generationally across much of the world, offering employers the promise of more knowledgeable recruits and promising individuals new means of social advancement. In the case of Bolivia, the labour force is becoming more heterogeneous over time, which could imply positive effects induced by a closer match between labour supply

Sweden has adopted an Active Labour Market Policy as a means of transitioning out of the economic crisis created by the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. The approach is to a significant extent reminiscent of that adopted following the 2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC). The article examines the effectiveness of active labour market policy in Sweden over the period 2007–2012. By analysing these earlier policy

Crowdwork conducted via digital platforms is a young form of work, but a growing part of the gig economy. Typical for crowdwork is low pay, volatile income streams and no social security benefits. Also, crowdworkers have few possibilities for social comparison or negotiation because they work outside of company organisations. This article examines the question of whether these conditions mean that

The Economy for the Common Good movement proposes an alternative economic model, which promises to offset many of the detrimental effects of the contemporary labour market. Yet, despite its increasing economic and social relevance in Europe, there is little research on Economy for the Common Good firms and the quality of the jobs they offer their employees. We thus, first, introduce the ideas of this

The Economic and Labour Relations Review (ELRR) is trialling a new section – a strand of exploratory articles and debates.

We use Canadian data over the period of 1991Q1 to 2019Q2 to examine the effect of higher minimum wages on consumption, measured as the real retail trade sales per adult population. Such an examination is rare in the extant literature and it is timely given the increasing debate concerning the stimulus versus inflationary effects arising from wage polices because of COVID-19 global pandemic. We apply

Investigations into new technologies, employment and working conditions are timeless and consequently have occupied research, public policy, and popular fiction for centuries. However, in addition to the uncertainty created by the introduction of new technologies, the current coronavirus pandemic, with its associated impact on health and the economy, has led to increased volatility across the globe

This study examines the causal relationship between education and the use of digital collaborative platforms as a first step in exploring the potential impact of the new digital labour markets on inequality. From the viewpoint of transaction costs theory, the less educated could benefit significantly from the digital collaborative economy due to the reduction in information costs made possible by this

Human civilisation faces a series of existential threats from the combination of five global and human-engineered challenges, namely climate change, resource depletion, environmental degradation, overpopulation and rising social inequality. These challenges are arguably being manifested in both an increased likelihood and magnified impact of catastrophes like forest fires, prolonged droughts, pandemics

The race to develop and implement autonomous systems and artificial intelligence has challenged the responsiveness of governments in many areas and none more so than in the domain of labour market policy. This article draws upon a large survey of Singaporean employees and managers (N = 332) conducted in 2019 to examine the extent and ways in which artificial intelligence and autonomous technologies

While traditional labour market estimates indicate that there has been little change in the proportion of workers holding multiple jobs in North America, survey instrument deficiencies may be hiding more substantial growth driven by the gig economy. To address this possibility, I test a broader measure of multiple jobholding to examine its prevalence in the Canadian workforce based on two national

Oxfam (2014) Working for the few: political capture and economic inequality. Oxfam Briefing Paper 178, 20 January. Available at: https://www-cdn.oxfam.org/s3fs-public/file_attachments/bp-working-for-few-political-capture-economic-inequality-200114-en_3.pdf (accessed 2 February 2020). Oxfam (2016) An economy for the 1%: how privilege and power in the economy drive extreme inequality and how this can

there is no necessary or automatic binary distinction between ‘high’ and ‘low road’ paths of development. It is possible for enterprises – particularly OEMs [original equipment manufacturers] and Tier-1 firms – to implement lean manufacturing principles and invest in employee development and skills for some of their workers, while simultaneously pursuing a flexible, low-cost labour approach for other

The purpose of this article is to investigate emerging areas of precarious employment in Sweden. Based on the literature on dimensions of precariousness and neoliberalism, this article will begin with an analysis of the transitioning Swedish welfare state and the contextual environment of precarious employment in Sweden. This will serve as a point of departure for the development of an occupational

Skills that are difficult to automate are expected to increase in demand and reward according to skill-biased technological change advocates, who have identified high rewards for cognitive and social skills. However, such broad skill categories involve numerous essential competencies that can be differentially rewarded or go simply unrewarded. Using US data, this article analyses the demand for and

This article presents an historical and comparative analysis of the bargaining power and agency conferred upon migrant workers in Australia under distinct policy regimes. Through an assessment of four criteria – residency status, mobility, skill thresholds and institutional protections – we find that migrant workers arriving in Australia in the period from 1973 to 1996 had high levels of bargaining