By Roger Jeary, IER blogger

Roger Jeary, a delegate at the Institute of Employment Rights’ Migration After Brexit: the Challenge to Labour Standards event, provides a detailed report on the debate, including free downloads of the papers and presentations given by the nine experts on our panel.

01 March 2017

By Sarah Glenister, National Development Officer, Institute of Employment Rights

On taking the mantle of Prime Minister last year, Theresa May attempted to rebrand the Tories the “party of workers”. The outcome of the referendum had been widely interpreted as a battlecry from a much maligned working class. Meanwhile, a rising tide of exposes in the national press had horrified a nation by revealing Dickensian conditions at major employers like Sports Direct and Amazon.

16 February 2017

By Sarah Glenister, National Development Officer, Institute of Employment Rights

The future is uncertain for migrant workers in the UK as the government prepares to trigger Article 50 next month. Thus far, Theresa May has neglected to provide any assurances to the three million EU workers living in the UK that they will be able to remain in the country and in their jobs. As Jeremy Corbyn told the Guardian this week, the Tories have taken on a "hunger games approach to Brexit". "Families, jobs and homes are all in the balance," he said, accusing the Tories of "playing political games with people's lives".

08 February 2017

By Ben Crawford, Assistant Editorial Officer, IER

The findings of the Ministry of Justice Review of employment tribunal fees, which was finally released this week, show that despite much rhetoric about ‘fairness’ and ‘an economy that works for all’, the Conservatives still fundamentally disregard the importance of workers’ rights.

27 January 2016

IER Editorial Team

LAST week’s revelations that only 18 fines for negligent or malicious employment practices have been levied since 2014 show that the employment tribunal system is failing to deter bad practice. With only £18,000 in fines handed out since 2014, the evidence suggests that the worst bosses need not fear punitive action; in fact, with the huge barriers workers face in accessing justice, employers as a whole have reason to believe they will never end up at tribunal at all.

20 January 2017

By Professor Jonathan Michie, Professor of Innovation and Knowledge Exchange at the University of Oxford

This year's Global Risks Report from the World Economic Forum warns that rising income inequality and societal polarisation could create further problems if urgent action isn’t taken -– and that’s after the car-crash that was 2016. Amen to that. It is somehow appropriate that the report is published just days after the death of Tony Atkinson, the social scientist who did more than any other to point to the importance of income inequality as an issue, and to argue that action could and should be taken.