ERU Seminar with Dr Jonathan Preminger “Nationalist Industrial Relations and the Ethnic ‘Other’: A Critical Border Studies Perspective.”

We are delighted to extend an invitation to our final ERU seminar of this academic year, featuring the work of Dr. Jonathan Preminger on “Nationalist Industrial Relations and the Ethnic ‘Other’: A Critical Border Studies Perspective.” Please find below the event details and an abstract of the presentation.
Event Details:
ERU Seminar: “Nationalist Industrial Relations and the Ethnic ‘Other’: A Critical Border Studies Perspective”
Date: 14th June
Time: 12:30 BST
Location: Room 0.22/3 PTC0.22/3 PTC (in-person) and Online (zoom)
Speaker: Dr. Jonathan Preminger
Abstract:
Based on the initial findings of an ongoing research project, this paper will argue that concepts and perspectives from critical border studies can provide crucial insights into the employment relations of noncitizen workers. Where industrial relations scholars focus on the response of ‘national’ institutions to migrants, and studies of global value chains focus on differential power resources and representation for worker groups in disparate countries, critical border studies draw our attention not only to the constitutive process of passing through borders but also the politics of being in borderlands. The employment of noncitizen Palestinians by Israelis is an ideal case for exploring this approach: constrained by myriad shifting borders, both physical and legal; able to access different organisations; and regulated by various institutions; Palestinian workers find themselves permanently in unstable borderlands, negotiating and renegotiating their position vis-à-vis employers and the state. Thus, going beyond common perspectives on migrant labour, the paper discusses multiple, contradictory, changing and contested borders and border spaces, with their rules inconsistently applied, as they impact the ethnic ‘other’.

Jonathan Preminger is senior lecturer in Management, Organisation and Employment at Cardiff Business School and author of Labor in Israel: Beyond Nationalism and Neoliberalism (ILR Press, 2018). His research interests include employment relations, trade unionism, the sociology of work, and employee ownership. Jonathan is a member of the Associate Board of Work, Employment and Society, and co-convener for the Work, Employment and Economic Life study group in the British Sociological Association.
For those attending in person, we are pleased to inform you that tea/coffee and cake will be available. Those participating online can follow this link to register: https://cardiff.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIufuuqqT8rHtLt0MSMLzt3nwBvMav00SV8

The employment effects of public investment in infrastructure, the care economy and the green economy: the case of emerging economies

Conference

 

The employment effects of public investment in 

infrastructure, the care economy and the green economy: 

the case of emerging economies

organised by the Greenwich Business School (GBS), University of Greenwich (UoG) 

Centre of Political Economy, Governance, Finance and Accountability (PEGFA)

in collaboration with the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) 

and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung

25 May 2023, 16:00-20:00

University of Greenwich, Queen Anne Building Room QA080,

Old Royal Naval College, Park Row, London, SE10 9LS, UK

We would like to invite you to the PEGFA conference where we will present the results of a new ITUC report conducted by Özlem Onaran and  Cem Oyvat at the University of Greenwich on the employment effects of public investment in infrastructure, the care economy and the green economy in the emerging economies. The report shows that a repeated annual increase in public spending within these three sectors would yield major economic returns across eight countries and create substantial new employment for  a green caring just transition in the emerging economies and beyond.

The speakers include Evelyn Astor (ITUC), Ronald Janssen (TUAC/OECD), David Kucera (ILO), Boitumelo Molete (COSATU), Geoff Tily (TUC), Gonzalo Hernández Jiménez (Colombia),  İpek İlkkaracan (İTU), Özlem Onaran (UoG) and Cem Oyvat (UoG), with opening remarks by Pro-Vice Chancellor Prof. Leigh Doster, Greenwich Business School (GBS).

This is an on-sight event but will also be accessible via Microsoft Teams. The event is free but please register here (indicating your mode of attendance).

PROGRAMME

16:00 Opening remarksPro-Vice Chancellor Prof. Leigh Doster, GBS

 

Chair and Introduction: Evelyn Astor, ITUC Economic and Social Policy Advisor

Özlem Onaran (GBS/PEGFA) and Cem Oyvat (GBS/PEGFA), The employment effects of public investment in infrastructure, the care economy and the green economy: the case of emerging economies

David Kucera, International Labour Organization, Senior Economist

Ronald Janssen, Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD (TUAC), Senior Policy Advisor, Investing in Green and Resilient Economies and labour markets : The role of trade unions

Geoff Tily, Trades Union Congress (TUC), UK, Senior Economist

İpek İlkkaracan, İstanbul Technical University, Prof. of Economics, The employment generation impact of meeting SDG targets in early childhood care, education, health, and long-term care in 45 countries  (online)

Boitumelo Molete, Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), Social Development Policy Coordinator, video

Gonzalo Hernández Jiménez, former Deputy Finance Minister, Colombia, video

Debate and Q&A 

19:00 Drinks Reception 

‘Gig Rights & Gig Wrongs’: New Report Published by Gig Rights Project

A new report based on a survey of more than 500 UK gig economy workers highlights the shocking low pay, insecurity and risk entailed by this work. For instance, over half the workers we surveyed earned below the minimum wage and 76% experience work-related insecurity and anxiety.
The findings also demonstrate that gig workers want labour rights, such as the minimum wage, trade unions, and a voice via platform councils and assemblies.
 

Four PhD Scholarships available with the Centre for Decent Work.

Sheffield University Management School is currently advertising PhD scholarships. Four of these scholarships will be for projects attached to the Centre for Decent Work. The project titles are as follows:
1. Trade Unions and Migrant Workers in the UK and Southern Europe.
2. The Development, Content and Implementation of National Labour Policies.
3. Labour Organising in the Logistics Sector: A Comparative Study of Warehouse Work in South Yorkshire and California’s Inland Empire.
4. You Can’t Unionise Robots’: Exploring the Impact of Technology on the Nature of Work in the Logistics Sector in the US and UK.
Each project will involve an international collaboration with either the European Trade Union Institute (Project 1), the International Labour Organisation (Project 2) or the University of California Riverside’s Inland Empire Labor and Community Research Center (IELCRC) and California State University – Long Beach (Projects 3 and 4). This is an excellent opportunity for PhD students to gain valuable international experience.
Further information about the projects and how to apply is available at: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/management/phd/scholarships

Work and Equalities Institute Fifth Annual Lecture Why do workers leave the labour force? Pandemic-era work transitions in the US and Germany.

Work and Equalities Institute Fifth Annual Lecture

Why do workers leave the labour force?

Pandemic-era work transitions in the US and Germany.

Professor Ian Greer

School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University

Date:     Thursday 18th May.

Time:     11:00 to 12:30.

Venue: Alliance Manchester Business School Lecture Pod B.

Register via Eventbrite (places are limited, but you can register to join online or contact Lindsay Endell.

Abstract

Once celebrated as a powerful engine of job creation, the US labour market has performed poorly over the past two decades. Unemployment rates have become increasingly volatile, unemployment durations have become longer, and labour force participation has declined. In this talk I examine some of the reasons for this change, drawing on a longitudinal qualitative study of US and German workers who experienced a spell of unemployment during the pandemic. I argue that some of the US’s more illiberal institutions create severe barriers to workers attempting to make transitions to work, and that supports such as unemployment insurance fail to compensate.

About the speaker

Ian Greer directs the ILR Ithaca Co-Lab and is a Research Professor. He carries out engaged research and teaching in Ithaca and the surrounding region. Before he moved to Ithaca he worked for nearly 10 years based in England, first as a Research Fellow at Leeds University and then as Professor of Comparative Employment Relations and Director of the Work and Employment Research Unit at the University of Greenwich. He has had visiting positions in Aix-en-Provence, Berlin, Cologne, Chemnitz, Jena, Paris, and Sydney.

Ian uses qualitative comparative methods to examine marketization and its effects in industrial relations and welfare states. His early work explored how German and US trade unions were coping with intensified price-based competition, through international solidarity, collective bargaining, coalitions with civil society, and organizing the unorganized. Over the years he has extended this line of questioning to examine the way that managers and policymakers stage competition across Europe, in multinational automakers, welfare-to-work schemes, social work, health care, ports, and music.

https://cornell.academia.edu/IanGreer

HRM-Employment Relations Group at UCD is hiring an Ad Astra Fellow (Assistant Professor)

The HRM-Employment Relations Group at University College Dublin is encouraging applications for UCD’s Ad Astra Fellowship positions in particular with a focus on International HRM and HR Analytics

Appointment Terms and Research Support

  • Ad Astra Fellow appointees will normally be appointed at the first salary point of Assistant Professor/Lecturer Above-the-Bar pay scale. € 58,206 – € 92,172 per annum
  • The initial term will be five years with the possibility of permanency after a four-year review of performance against targets set with the Head of School at commencement and approved at College and University level. These targets will include applying for a minimum of one externally-funded research grant each year, and there will normally be an expectation that at least one of these grant applications is successful for the four-year review to be satisfactory.
  • Relocation expenses will be paid in accordance with the UCD Relocation Policy up to a maximum of €4500.
  • Appointees will have a reduced teaching load for up to three years, with a teaching load of between one third and one half of the standard teaching load in the first year, between one half and two thirds in the second year and between two thirds and one of the standard teaching load in the third year.
  • Appointees will  receive research support for the first five years, which will normally consist of a PhD student scholarship and a budget for research costs of €5000 per annum.
  • Appointees without a formal university teaching qualification will be expected to undertake the UCD Professional Certificate in University Teaching and Learning. Further requirements for satisfactory performance will be determined and will include a specified number of high-quality research publications appropriate for the discipline.

(See: UCD Ad Astra Fellows)

Willy Brown – The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

Willy Brown
The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography has just published a profile on Willy Brown by Peter Ackers:-
Those interested in academic IR history may also find Peter’s entries for Ben Roberts & Bill McCarthy of interest.