14 July 2016

By Professor Sylvaine Laulom, Director of Institut d'études du travail de Lyon, the University Lumière Lyon 2

Finally, the long road towards the ‘El Khomri’ Law, named after the French Minister of Labour and officially called the ‘Labour Act’ (‘Loi Travail’), is coming to an end. A draft was accepted by the National Assembly after its second reading on July 6, following the use, for the second time, of Article 49.3 of the Constitution. It will now proceed to the Senate. At that stage, the Act should be accepted by the Parliament by the end of July. It will likely be referred to the Constitutional Council. By the end of summer, the Act is likely to have been adopted.

08 July 2016

By Isabel Távora, University of Manchester; and Pilar González, University of Porto

In the fifth article of our EU Comparative Series, academics from the University of Manchester and the University of Porto examine the impact on trade union and workers’ rights of a shift towards neoliberal structures in Portugal following intervention of the Troika.

08 July 2016

By Sabrina Colombo and Ida Regalia, Dipartimento di Scienze Sociali e Politiche, Università degli studi di Milano

In the fourth piece from our EU Comparative Series, Italian academics Sabrina Colombo and Ida Regalia analyse the impact of Troika intervention on Italy's collective bargaining structure, employment law, and trade union rights.

By Rebecca Zahn and Nicole Busby

06 July 2016

Women have played a key role in the British trade union movement since its inception. After all, the first strike for equal pay was organised by 1,500 women card-setters in Yorkshire in 1832. However, although trade unionism and the intellectual underpinnings of the labour movement were instigated around and by women – one need only think of the economist and labour historian Beatrice Webb (often referred to as one of ‘the Webbs’, i.e. the wife of Sidney but who was a pivotal figure in her own right) just as much as they were by men, the fact remains that once institutionalised, the labour movement became focused on the needs and concerns of the ‘standard male worker’. Women workers became part of the women’s movement – viewed as ‘the other’ and often subjected to outright hostility – rather than an integral part of the British workers’ movement. Women’s position outside the mainstream labour movement has been maintained up to the present day. Nowadays gendered occupational segregation and the prevalence of part-time work raise questions about the relevance of traditional trade unionism to women’s working lives. From their perceived threat to the established organisation of paid work up to these contemporary challenges to trade unionism, women can be seen as ‘dangerous’.

01 July 2016

By Carolyn Jones, Professor Keith Ewing and John Hendy QC

THE world of work has changed and with it the nature and role of the workforce. For Britain’s 31 million workers, many of the changes have had a devastating impact on their working lives and their living standards. Britain’s workers are among the most insecure, unhappy and stressed workers in Europe.

28 June 2016

By Dr Alex Balch, Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, The University of Liverpool

As the dust settles after the EU referendum, the implications of Brexit for working conditions in the UK will surely be significant but it could be some time before these consequences become clear.