Relations Industrielles/Industrial Relations  You have until February 28th, 2025, to submit a manuscript for the thematic issue edited by Patrice Jalette, Jean Charest Ph.D. and Vassil Kirov : “What are the repercussions of labour/skills shortages and scarcity on industrial relations and human resource management?”.

The goal of this special issue is to provide an opportunity for researchers to advance theoretical reflection and provide empirical evidence to better understand the repercussions of labour/skills shortages and scarcity on IR and HRM in unionized and/or nonunionized workplaces. In other words, this special issue focuses on how social actors – workers, employers, unions, sectoral bodies and states – deal with a lack of labour and skills. Submissions to this Special Issue, which enter into dialogue with existing theories about these impacts and arising adaptations and which present credible empirical evidence will be privileged.

Deadline for submissions: February 28th, 2025

A multidisciplinary non-profit quarterly journal dedicated to the study of work and employment, Relations industrielles/Industrial Relations is a peer-reviewed bilingual quarterly journal of international reputation ranked No. 2 by the FNEGE and in the top 50 French-language journals by Google Scholar. Its mission is to act as a diffuser of the best original scientific work in this field. Published continuously since 1945, RI/IR has the merit of being one of the oldest industrial relations journals in Canada, and indeed the world. We publish a different issue each season and are always accepting submissions. The journal is following a Diamond Open Access model.

For full details, visit our website: https://www.riir.ulaval.ca/en/special-issues/ongoing-call-papers

Special Webinar with Emeritus Professor Sir George Bain

Tuesday 18 Feb. 2025, 9.30am GMT via Zoom

You are invited to join the British Universities Industrial Relations Association (BUIRA), Scotland, for a Webinar Conversation with Emeritus Professor Sir George Bain, a leading industrial-relations academic who has also made significant contributions to industrial relations policy and practice, including his work as a member of the Bullock Commission and chair of the Low Pay Commission. The Webinar is hosted by Professor Stewart Johnstone, Strathclyde University, and the conversation with Professor Bain will be led by Professor Greg Bamber, Monash University, Australia.

Professor Peter Turnbull (Bristol University) BUIRA President will introduce the Webinar and there will be an opportunity for questions following reflections by Professor Melanie Simms, Glasgow University. The free webinar will last for 75 minutes. For more about George Bain, see below.

Register here by 11 Feb. 2025.

GEORGE BAIN

George Bain is a Canadian-British academic born and raised in Winnipeg.  After studying economics and political science at the University of Manitoba, a Commonwealth Scholarship took him to Oxford University in 1963 to obtain his doctorate in industrial relations under the supervision of Hugh Clegg and Allan Flanders.

Following a Research Fellowship at Nuffield College, Oxford, he became (at age thirty) the Frank Thomas Professor of Industrial Relations at Manchester University.  He gave up his chair to become the Deputy Director and subsequently Director of the Industrial Relations Research Unit as well as the Pressed Steel Professor of Industrial Relations at Warwick University. He contributed much to BUIRA including serving as its secretary and organising conferences.

His research interests have been mainly concerned with white-collar employees and their organisations; the theory of union growth; public policy relating to union recognition and union security, collective bargaining, employee participation and industrial democracy; and the bibliography of industrial relations that resulted, among other things, in the creation of the Modern Records Centre at Warwick, Britain’s leading archive for union and employers’ association records.

In 1983, he began to move away from teaching and research to academic leadership.  Under his leadership, the School of Industrial and Business Studies at Warwick was transformed into Warwick Business School, which became one of the leading business schools in Europe; the London Business School enhanced its reputation from being the best British business school to one of the world’s top-ten business schools; and when he was its Vice-Chancellor, Queen’s University Belfast was revitalised into a much stronger, diverse, and pluralistic institution after thirty years of “the Troubles”.

Although primarily an academic, his interests and activities have extended far beyond the academy.  In addition to being a mediator and arbitrator in more than seventy industrial disputes and being a non-executive director of several companies in the UK and Canada, he has engaged extensively in public service, particularly by being a member of and chairing numerous government commissions and inquiries, including:  the Bullock Committee on Industrial Democracy, which considered how employee representatives could best be placed on the boards of major British companies; the Low Pay Commission, which introduced the National Minimum Wage; the Work and Parents Taskforce, which underpinned legislation on flexible working; and the Independent Review of the Fire Service, which provided the basis for fundamental reform in this sector.

He has received numerous prizes and honours, including being made a Fellow of the British Academy of Management, the Association of Business Schools, and the Academy of Social Sciences; receiving 12 honorary doctorates; and being knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. George now lives in Scotland.

Mick Lynch has announced his retirement as general secretary of the RMT union (effective from May this year).

Gregor Gall’s biography of him called ‘Mick Lynch: The making of a working-class hero’ (published 2 Jan 2024) is available with a 50% discount (£10, not £20) from Manchester University Press – see
https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526173096/

Call for Papers for a Special Issue of the Journal of Industrial Relations

Workplace Geopolitics: Industrial Relations and International Relations

Guest editors

Frederick Harry Pitts, University of Exeter

Huw Thomas, University College Dublin

The world of work is in flux. Trump’s re-election and similar political events worldwide have sent shockwaves across the globe. In a globalised economy, shifts in geopolitical power influence trade policies, investment flows, and labour mobility, directly affecting industrial relations. Our argument, and the purpose of this special issue, is that we need to take geopolitics seriously in industrial relations by moving beyond ‘workplace rules’ and national systems to the intertwining of the labour process with broader political conflicts. This special issue invites contributions focusing on the link between geopolitics and industrial relations. Geopolitics refers to power relations in different geographical spaces, emphasising international relations and the political-economic strategies of nation-states. Geopolitics is understandably well discussed in international relations and international political economy, but, despite its relevance to the world of work, it has been given a short shrift in the field of industrial relations.

This special issue is interested in the concept of ‘workplace geopolitics’ that is, how an increasingly fractious world riven by great-power competition impacts upon the changing workplace (Pitts 2021; Pitts and Thomas 2024). In its simplest terms, both the threat of war and actual war have real impacts on workers and their livelihoods. More specifically, the emergence of a ‘second cold war’ (Schindler et al 2023) or ‘world civil war’ (Pitts 2024; Pitts and MacLeavy 2024) is cleaving the global economy in two between competing ideological poles. Tariffs significantly impact workers by altering the dynamics of industries and labour markets, companies are encouraged to ‘reshore’ production to secure the national economy; the search for supply chain resilience and the imperative of digital and green transition is driving a ‘new state capitalism’ (Alami and Dixon 2024); and the evolving needs of revitalised industries for skilled labour is putting work and workers back at the centre of policy debates. As globalisation takes on a new form we need to rethink the study of industrial relations.

The connection between industrial and international relations has a long pedigree. For example, in 1999 the International Studies Association held a workshop entitled ‘IR2: International Relations and Industrial Relations: Exploring an Interface’. At a similar time, a call for papers for a special issue in the Journal of Industrial Relations, invited contributions on the nature of globalisation and industrial relations and how to regulate its consequences (Bray and Murray 2000). Indeed, it has been over two decades, since the study of industrial relations looked to the ‘other IR’ – international relations – in order to understand the emergence of globalisation (Giles 2000), as well as international political economy as both a component of and challenger to international relations (Cox 1981, Cox 1983, Gill 1990). In return, scholars of international relations and international political economy looked to industrial relations and the ‘politics of production’ to connect the global to the workplace (Rupert 1990, Harrod 1997).

At the time, the end of the Cold War seemingly invalidated any alternative to the hegemony of Western liberal democracy, opened up the world economy to transnational flows of capital, weakened the role of the nation-state and challenged the capacity of workers and their representatives to wield power nationally, internationally and in their workplaces. Following an era in which globalisation, global supply chains and transnational companies seemed the indisputable cornerstones of capitalist political economy, owing to these trends, the nation-state was increasingly seen as being constrained between the rock and hard place of international competition and capital mobility. Since then, research in international industrial relations (in particular in this journal) on corporate social responsibility (Robinson 2010), global supply chains (Wright and Kaine 2015), global labour governance (Frenkel et al 2022), climate change (Flanagan and Goods 2022; Goods 2017), migration (MacKenzie and Lucio 2019) and global union federations (Ford and Gillan 2015) has flourished. However, the geopolitical context of these developments has tended to be downplayed, ignored or otherwise dismissed.

Whilst in the nineties and noughties debate flourished on what we can learn from international relations and international political economy (Giles 2000; Haworth and Hughes 2000), more recently this necessity has faded into the background, especially if we compare the cross-pollination between other fields such as sociology and industrial relations (Doellgast et al 2021; Tapia et al 2015). The failure to properly follow through on this encounter is not necessarily surprising considering the continued methodological nationalism of much IR scholarship (Almond and Connolly 2020). Meeting anew the challenge previously laid down in the Journal of Industrial Relations, we therefore invite contributions that consider what the study of industrial relations can (again) learn from the ‘other IR’.

Just as industrial relations looked to international relations in the past to locate the labour process within global shifts, it should look to international relations again today. We therefore invite contributions to this special issue which sit at the intersection of industrial relations and the concepts and concerns of international relations and international political economy – for instance, state capitalism (Alami and Dixon 2024), uneven and combined development (Antunes de Oliviera et al 2023; Rosenberg et al 2022), hegemonic shifts in the liberal world order (Stahl 2019, Babic 2020), systemic competition over technology and other key industries (Rolf and Schindler 2023); growth models in international perspective (Amable and Polombarini 2023, Baccaro and Pontusson 2022, Bondy et al 2024, May et al 2024), global governance and development institutions (Taggart 2023; Thomas 2022) and state infrastructural projects (McCarthy 2024; Schindler et al 2022) and industrial strategies (Germann 2023, Schneider 2023) – unpacking their meaning for work and workers.

Debates in these areas would seem to offer promising avenues for the revitalisation of industrial relations. In turn, we suggest that industrial relations research has a contribution to make to this growing literature, fleshing out a missing sense of what the geopolitical reshaping of economic relations means for everyday working lives, how to solve the ‘problems for labour’ (Wright 2023) and the power resources available to their representatives (Brookes 2013; Refslund and Arnholtz 2022). In this respect, the special issue takes forward existing and emergent strands of IR scholarship that foreground or feature (geo)politics and grant a prominent role to the national and international state in shaping work and production, whether through the regulatory and political pressures (Doellgast et al 2021; Ford and Gillan 2016; Hess 2021; Maccarone 2024; Meardi et al. 2016), past periods of crisis and transformation (Clark 1999, de Vaujany 2024, Dias Abey 2024, Kelley et al 2006, Nyland et al 2014) or present geopolitical and political-economic developments (Bondy and Maggor 2024, Erne et al 2024, Rainnie et al 2024, Preminger and Bondy 2023, Snell et al 2022). Contributions might use this interdisciplinary meeting point as a springboard to address some of the following questions:

• How are supply chains being restructured in light of geopolitical tensions?
• How are geopolitics shaping migration regimes and its consequence for work?
• To what extent and to what effect is the role of the state in industrial policy impacting workers?
• What are the consequences for workers of increasing investment in industries that intertwine economic and geopolitical drivers, such as defence manufacturing, green industries, minerals/metals and digital areas such as cybersecurity?
• How does the investment in strategic industries as a consequence of climate crisis and geopolitical ruptures create opportunities for better work?
• What is the impact of economic nationalism, populism and protectionist initiatives on workers and their representatives?
• How do trade unions navigate the contemporary geopolitical terrain to advance the interests of their members?
• How can historical precedents, such as the Cold War period of industrial and social compromise, inform our understanding of the relationship between political economy and the politics of work today?

This list of topics should be very much seen as illustrative rather than exhaustive. However, in order to be considered for inclusion, contributions should demonstrate the importance of geopolitics in understanding industrial relations (or vice versa). Contributions to the special issue may be historical or contemporary and empirical, analytical or conceptual. We welcome contributions from any methodological approach and we strongly welcome contributions that have policy implications and a commitment to more and better jobs (Thomas and Turnbull 2024).

Note that the scope of the Special Issue and the Journal of Industrial Relations is framed by industrial relations, employment and the world of work. Papers outside of this scope will not be considered.

Editor biographies

Frederick Harry Pitts is a Senior Lecturer in Politics and Director of Business Engagement and Innovation at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences on the University of Exeter’s Cornwall Campus, in his hometown of Penryn. He is co-editor of the Routledge International Handbook for the Future of Work. He is a Co-Investigator of the Economic and Social Research Council Centre for Sociodigital Futures and the UKRI Critical Minerals Accelerating the Green Economy Centre, a Fellow of the Institute for the Future of Work, and an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at University of Bristol Business School.

Huw Thomas is an Assistant Professor of Employment Relations at the University College Dublin (UCD) College of Business and works in the Human Resource Management and Employment Relations Subject Area. Huw’s area of expertise is in the broad area of international employment relations. He is a Steward of the British Universities Industrial Relations Association (BUIRA); Co-researcher at the Centre de recherche interuniversitaire sur la mondialisation et le travail (CRIMT); Research Fellow at the Institute for the Future of Work (IFOW) and Fellow of the Digital Futures at Work Research Centre (DIGIT).

Timeline and paper submissions:

All interested contributors should submit an extended abstract (max. 1,000 words) via email to one or both of the Guest Editors:

Frederick Harry Pitts, University of Exeter, f.h.pitts@exeter.ac.uk

Huw Thomas, University College Dublin, huw.thomas@ucd.ie

The extended abstract must clearly outline the research question or purpose of the proposed paper, as well as how the paper advances our understanding of geopolitics and industrial relations research.

The deadline for submitting extended abstracts is 23 May 2025.

Feedback on all abstracts will be provided on all abstracts on 20 June 2025. The guest editors will not provide editorial assistance for extended abstracts.

There will be a paper development workshop for selected extended abstracts.

Full paper deadline for paper development workshop (for authors whose extended abstracts are accepted): 15 August 2025

Online workshop to be held in early September 2025 (dates TBC).

Deadline for full papers to be submitted to the JIR for peer review: 28 November 2025

Publication date: Early 2027

Authors should submit papers in the normal way through the JIR website, and take care to follow the manuscript instructions available here: https://journals.sagepub.com/author-instructions/JIR

References

Alami, I. (2023). ‘The spiral of state capitalism: labour transformations or the “whip of external necessity”?’. Global Political Economy. 2(1): 17-36.

Alami, I., Babic, M., Dixon, A. D. and Liu, I. T. (2022). ‘Special issue introduction: what is the new state capitalism?’. Contemporary Politics. 28(3): 245–63.

Almond, P. and Connolly, H. (2020). ‘A manifesto for “slow” comparative research on work and employment’. European Journal of Industrial Relations. 26(1): 59–74.

Amable, B., and Palombarini, S. (2023). ‘Multidimensional social conflict and institutional change’. New Political Economy. 28(6): 942-957.

Antunes De Oliveira, F., Germann, J., and Rolf, S. (2023). ‘A system of mutual dependence and antagonism: exploring the potential of uneven and combined development within Global Political Economy’. Global Political Economy. 2(1): 2-16.

Babic, M. (2020). ‘Let’s talk about the interregnum: Gramsci and the crisis of the liberal world order’. International affairs. 96(3): 767-786.

Baccaro, L., and Pontusson, J. (2022). ‘The politics of growth models’. Review of Keynesian Economics. 10(1): 204-221.

Bondy, A.S., Maggor, E., and Tassinari, A. (2024). ‘Putting wage growth back on the table: Labour incorporation, political exchange, and wage-boosting policies in advanced peripheral economies’. Competition and Change. ePub ahead of print.

Bondy, A. S., and Maggor, E. (2024). ‘Balancing the scales: labour incorporation and the politics of growth model transformation’. New Political Economy. 29(1): 22-41.

Bray, M. and Murray, G. (2000). ‘Introduction: Globalisation and Labour Regulation’. Journal of Industrial Relations. 42(2): 167–72.

Brookes, M. (2013). ‘Varieties of power in transnational labor alliances: An analysis of workers’ structural, institutional, and coalitional power in the global economy’. Labor Studies Journal. 38(3): 181-200.

Clark, I. (1999). ‘Institutional stability in management practice and industrial relations: the influence of the Anglo-American Council for Productivity, 1948–52’. Business History. 41 (3), pp. 64-92.

Cooke, F. L., Wang, D. and Wang, J. (2018). ‘State capitalism in construction: Staffing practices and labour relations of Chinese construction firms in Africa’. Journal of Industrial Relations. 60(1): 77–100.

Cox, R. W. (1983). ‘Gramsci, hegemony and international relations: an essay in method’. Millennium. 12(2): 162-175.

Cox, R. W. (1981). ‘Social forces, states and world orders: beyond international relations theory’. Millennium. 10(2): 126-155.

Dias-Abey, M. N. (2024). ‘The Aliens Order 1920, the “work permit” and the making of the national labour market’. In Rethinking Migration: Challenging Borders, Citizenship and Race. University of Bristol Press.

Doellgast, V., Bidwell, M. and Colvin, A. J. S. (2021). ‘New Directions in Employment Relations Theory: Understanding Fragmentation, Identity, and Legitimacy’. Industrial and Labor Relations Review. 74(3): 555–79.

Erne, R., Stan, S., Golden, D., Imre, S., and Maccarone, V. (2024). Politicising Commodification: European Governance and Labour Politics from the Financial Crisis to the Covid Emergency. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Flanagan, F. and Goods, C. (2022). ‘Climate change and industrial relations: Reflections on an emerging field’. Journal of Industrial Relations. 64(4): 479–98.

Ford, M. and Gillan, M. (2015). ‘The global union federations in international industrial relations: a critical review’. Journal of Industrial Relations. 57(3): 456–75.

——— and ——— (2016). ‘Employment relations and the state in Southeast Asia’. Journal of Industrial Relations. 58(2): 167–82.

Frenkel, S. J., Rahman, S. and Rahman, K. M. (2022). ‘After Rana Plaza: Governing Exploitative Workplace Labour Regimes in Bangladeshi Garment Export Factories’. Journal of Industrial Relations. 64(2): 272–97.

Germann, J. (2023). ‘Global rivalries, corporate interests and Germany’s “National Industrial Strategy 2030”’. Review of international political economy. 30(5): 1749-1775.

Giles, A. (2000). ‘Globalisation and Industrial Relations Theory’. Journal of Industrial Relations. 42(2): 173–94.

Gill, S. (1990). ‘Two concepts of international political economy’. Review of International Studies. 16(4): 369-381.

Goods, C. (2017). ‘Climate change and employment relations’. Journal of Industrial Relations. 59(5): 670–9.

Harrod, J. (1997). ‘Social forces and international political economy: joining the two IRs’. In Innovation and transformation in international studies. Cambridge University Press.

Haworth, N. and Hughes, S. (2000). ‘Internationalisation, Industrial Relations Theory and International Relations’. Journal of Industrial Relations. 42(2): 195–213.

Hess, M. (2021). ‘Global production networks: the state, power and politics’. In Rethinking value chains. Policy Press.

Kelley, E. S., Mills, A. J., and Cooke, B. (2006). ‘Management as a Cold War phenomenon?’. Human Relations. 59(5): 603-610.

MacKenzie, R. and Lucio, M. M. (2019). ‘Regulation, migration and the implications for industrial relations’. Journal of Industrial Relations. 61(2): 176–97.

Maccarone, V. (2024). ‘The Europeanization of Wage Policy and Its Consequences for Labor Politics: The Case of Ireland’. ILR Review. 77(5): 716-741.

May, C., Nölke, A., and Schedelik, M. (2024). ‘Growth models and social blocs: Taking Gramsci seriously’. Competition and Change. ePub ahead of print.

McCarthy DR (2024). ‘Infrastructure and the integral state: Internal Relations, processes of state formation, and Gramscian state theory’. Review of International Studies. 50(4): 619-637.

Meardi, G., Donaghey, J., and Dean, D. (2016). ‘The strange non-retreat of the state: implications for the sociology of work’. Work, Employment and Society. 30(4): 559–572.

Nyland, C., Bruce, K., and Burns, P. (2014). ‘Taylorism, the International Labour Organization, and the genesis and diffusion of codetermination’. Organization Studies. 35(8): 1149-1169.

Pitts, F. H. (2021). ‘Editorial: Welcome to an age of workplace geopolitics?’ Futures of Work. 20. https://futuresofwork.co.uk/2021/11/03/welcome-to-an-age-of-workplace-geopolitics/

Pitts, F. H. (2024). ‘New cold war or “world civil war”? Wertkritik and the critical theory of capitalism in an age of conflict’. European Journal of Social Theory. 27(4): 579-601.

Pitts, F. H. and Thomas, H. (2024). ‘Future of Work and Global Trends: Reframing the Debate in an Age of State Capitalism and Systemic Competition’. In The Elgar Companion to Decent Work and the Sustainable Development Goals. Edward Elgar.

Pitts, F. H., and MacLeavy, J. (2024). ‘Conclusions and future challenges: The end of work and the end of history’. In The Handbook for the Future of Work. Routledge.

Preminger, J., and Bondy, A. S. (2023). ‘Conflicting imperatives? Ethnonationalism and neoliberalism in industrial relations’. ILR Review. 76(4): 646-673.

Rainnie, A. (2024). ‘AUKUS and jobs’. The Journal of Australian Political Economy, (92), 217-223.

Refslund, B. and Arnholtz, J. (2022). ‘Power resource theory revisited: The perils and promises for understanding contemporary labour politics’. Economic and Industrial Democracy. 43(4): 1958–79.

Robinson, P. K. (2010). ‘Do Voluntary Labour Initiatives Make a Difference for the Conditions of Workers in Global Supply Chains?’ Journal of Industrial Relations. 52(5): 561–73.

Rolf, S., and Schindler, S. (2023). ‘The US–China rivalry and the emergence of state platform capitalism’. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space. 55(5): 1255-1280.

Rosenberg, J., Zarakol, A., Blagden, D., Rutazibwa, O., Gray, K., Corry, O., Matin, K., Antunes de Oliveira, F. and Cooper, L. (2022). ‘Debating Uneven and Combined Development/Debating International Relations: A Forum’. Millennium. 50(2): 291–327.

Rupert, M. E. (1990). ‘Producing hegemony: State/society relations and the politics of productivity in the United States’. International Studies Quarterly. 34(4): 427-456.

Schindler, S., DiCarlo, J., and Paudel, D. (2022). ‘The new cold war and the rise of the 21st-century infrastructure state’. Transactions of the institute of British geographers. 47(2): 331-346.

Schindler, S., Alami, I., DiCarlo, J., Jepson, N., Rolf, S., Bayırbağ, M. K., Cyuzuzo, L., DeBoom, M., Farahani, A. F., Liu, I. T., McNicol, H., Miao, J. T., Nock, P., Teri, G., Vila Seoane, M. F., Ward, K., Zajontz, T. and Zhao, Y. (2023). ‘The Second Cold War: US-China Competition for Centrality in Infrastructure, Digital, Production, and Finance Networks’. Geopolitics. 29(4): 1083-1120.

Schneider, E. (2023). ‘Germany’s Industrial strategy 2030, EU competition policy and the Crisis of New Constitutionalism. (Geo-) political economy of a contested paradigm shift’. New political economy. 28(2): 241-258.

Snell, D., Dean, M., and Rainnie, A. (2022). ‘Militarising Australian industrial policy: a dead end?’ Futures of Work, 21. https://futuresofwork.co.uk/2022/02/10/militarising-australian-industrial-policy-a-dead-end/

Stahl, R. M. (2019). ‘Ruling the interregnum: Politics and ideology in nonhegemonic times’. Politics and Society. 47(3): 333-360.

Taggart, J. R. (2022). ‘Global development governance in the “interregnum”’. Review of International Political Economy. 29(3): 904-927.

Tapia, M., Ibsen, C. L. and Kochan, T. A. (2015). ‘Mapping the frontier of theory in industrial relations: the contested role of worker representation’. Socio-Economic Review. 13(1): 157–84.

Thomas, H. (2022). ‘Back into the cold? The International Labour Organization and workplace geopolitics’. Futures of Work. 21. https://futuresofwork.co.uk/2022/02/10/back-into-the-cold-the-international-labour-organization-ilo-and-workplace-geopolitics/

Thomas, H. and Turnbull, P. (2024). ‘The value of industrial relations research(ers): Activism inside and outside the UK Academy’. Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society. ePub ahead of print.

de Vaujany, F. X. (2024). The Rise of Digital Management: From Industrial Mobilization to Platform Capitalism. Taylor and Francis.

Werner, M. (2019). ‘Geographies of production I: Global production and uneven development’. Progress in Human Geography. 43(5): 948–58.

Wright, C. F. (2023). ‘Addressing problems for labour not problems of labour: the need for a paradigm shift in work and industrial relations policy’. Labour and Industry. 33(1): 11–21.

——— and Kaine, S. (2015). ‘Supply chains, production networks and the employment relationship’. Journal of Industrial Relations. 57(4): 483–501.

Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society invites submissions for a special issue on Gender and Industrial Relations. The special issue aims to explore the intersections of gender with industrial relations and to highlight both established and underexplored areas of research that connect these two critical dimensions of work and employment.

For further details, including key dates, suggested topics of interest, and information about the paper development workshops that are being organised to help authors prepare their submissions to the special issue, please see the call for papers at the following link: https://irle.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/IR-call-for-papers-gender-and-IR-final.pdf

For any queries regarding the special issue, please feel free to contact the guest editors

• Prof Rae Cooper, rae.cooper@sydney.edu.au (The University of Sydney Business School)
• Prof Jennifer Tomlinson, j.tomlinson@leeds.ac.uk (Leeds University Business School)
• Dr Laura Good, laura.good@sydney.edu.au (The University of Sydney Business School
• Dr Chris F Wright, chris.f.wright@sydney.edu.au (The University of Sydney Business School)

Wednesday 29 January 2025
17.30 to 19.30
This seminar will be conducted through Zoom. Please register through the following link:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/buira-history-of-industrial-relations-study-group-tickets-1106201732159?aff=oddtdtcreator

For further details, please email Michael Gold (m.gold@rhul.ac.uk) or Linda Clarke (clarkel@wmin.ac.uk).
Programme:

17.30-17.40: Welcome: Michael Gold and Linda Clarke (Chairs)

17.40-18.10: Paul Smith

Trade Unions, the Right to Strike and the Political Economy of Labour: The Trade Union and Labour Relations Act (1974)
The law of trade unions and industrial action continues to be articulated through contrasting economic and social norms and values, notably the conflict between the political economy of capital and the political economy of labour. This paper explores this theme through an analysis of the struggle to create a right to strike against the legacy of the Combination Acts and the vitality of common law. This culminated in the Trade Disputes Act (1906) which, after the failure of the Industrial Relations Act (1971), was restated in wider language by the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act (1974), amended 1976. Judicial opposition to this Act helped pave the way for the legislation enacted after 1979 by a Conservative government committed to restricting the right to strike and union government.

18.10-18.40: Jon Cruddas

Employment Regulation under Labour – From Donovan to Starmer
Since the pandemic, the status and significance of human labour has been re-established at the centre of our political, economic and social life. The recently elected Labour government has promised to enact a New Deal for Working People, ‘make Britain the best place to work’ and ‘fundamentally change our economy’ based around good work. This presentation will investigate the new Government’s labour market interventions and more generally compare and contrast different approaches to employment regulation from the 1964 Wilson Government to the present Starmer Administration.

18.40-19.30: General discussion

19.30: Close

Our speakers:

Jon Cruddas was formally Labour MP for Dagenham and Rainham for 23 years, a candidate for Deputy Leader and member of the Shadow Cabinet. His book, The Dignity of Labour (2021), explored the economics and future of work, while A Century of Labour (2024) marked the centenary of the first Labour government.

Paul Smith was formerly a Senior Lecturer at Keele University. He is Lead Editor of Historical Studies in Industrial Relations and author of Unionization and Union Leadership: The Road Haulage Industry (2001), as well as articles including ‘Labour under the Law: A New Law of Combination, and Master and Servant, in 21st-century Britain?’, Industrial Relations Journal (2016), and ‘In Defence of Trade-Unionism: Bill Wedderburn and Rookes v. Barnard, HSIR 42 (2021).

Keith Sisson has written a follow up to ‘Introducing sectoral bargaining in the UK’ 

Introducing sectoral bargaining in adult social care: a matter of the devil in the details

June 25-27 2025  |  Pre-conference PhD Day: June 24

University of Exeter in Cornwall, Penryn Campus, Cornwall

Confirmed keynote speakers:

Professor Al Rainnie, University of South Australia

Professor Jane Wills, University of Exeter

Key dates for your diary

• Friday 13th February – deadline for submission of abstracts

• Monday 9th March-Friday 14th March – decisions on abstracts communicated and registration opens

• Monday 14th April – deadline for registration

Submit your abstracts here and find out more about the conference

Clara Heinrich (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Germany) was awarded the BUIRA prize for the best contribution to the Association’s Annual Conference, held at Queen Mary University, London. The title of her thesis is A European Comparison of Job Retention Programmes, focusing on labour market policies introduced during the financial crisis (2008-09) and the Covid-19 pandemic.

During the financial crisis, labour market policies for short time working in Germany were praised for their protection of employees. Shortly after the outbreak of the pandemic, the European Commission recommended the implementation of Job Retention Programmes (JRP) to preserve jobs and support companies. The EU backed up its recommendation with the temporary Support to mitigate Unemployment Risks in an Emergency (SURE) and made considerable financial resources available to its member states. However, the organisation of JRPs varies considerably between the different welfare states in Europe, even where they have similar welfare institutions, depending, inter alia, on the primary objective and type of support.

Clara’s thesis examines the institutional and political variables behind the variance in JRPs (e.g., short time working, furlough schemes and wage subsidy schemes). In particular, her thesis explores whether there is evidence of ‘policy learning’ between member states based on the success of Germany’s short time working policies.

More information on the call for papers here

We invite innovative papers that reflect on the current state and future of industrial relations in Europe. In the tradition of IREC, papers with a comparative or international dimension are especially welcome. In particular, authors are encouraged to address questions related to the following main topical clusters:

– The role of social dialogue in the twin transitions (digitalisation and decarbonisation).
– Enacting a Just Transition in regional and sectoral settings.
– Temperatures rises, extreme weather events and occupational safety and health.
– Well-being at work in changing times: remote and hybrid work, hyper-connectivity, the right to disconnect, and the rise of platform work.
– Adjusting legal frameworks and collective bargaining for digitalisation and emerging types of work (platform work).
– State regulation of collective bargaining and trade union activity.
– The role of employer organisations and trade unions in multi-employer collective bargaining.
– Emerging actors in industrial relations.
– New challenges for worker participation and labour relations at the company and workplace level in Europe.
– The debates around Social Europe and Val Duchesse reloaded.
– Inflation and collective bargaining.
– The return of strikes.
– Equality and diversity in workplace representation and collective bargaining.
– Structural inequalities and industrial relations.
– Migration and cross-border labour markets in Europe.

Authors are invited to submit their abstract in English or French to IREC2025@liser.lu. There will be an English-speaking and a French-speaking section at the conference. You can submit only one abstract for one presenting speaker to the conference. This means that at the conference, each participant can only present one paper but this does not prevent other presenters presenting papers where one is a co-author.

Abstracts in English or French should not exceed 300 words. Most sessions will have the duration of 1.5 hours. Sessions will include 3 or 4 papers (15 minutes presentation time per paper) and discussion. Abstracts will be peer-reviewed and selected for presentation.

Email for further information: IREC2025@liser.lu

Tentative list of keynote speakers (to be updated)
Professor Richard Hyman (London School of Economics, UK)
Dr. Christine Aumayr-Pintar (Eurofound, Dublin)
Associate Professor Maite Tapia (Michigan State University, US)

Important Dates
Abstract submission deadline: 31 January 2025.
Notification of acceptance: 31 March 2025 (or earlier).

Conference Date: 16-18 September 2025
Conference venue: Chambre des Salariés, Casino syndical, 63 Rue de Bonnevoie, L-1260 Luxembourg.

Registration fees: 350 EUR (PhD Students: 275 EUR). The conference will be held in-person.