Dr. Frank Wilkinson

founder member of Institute for Employment Rights,; Life Fellow of Girton College, Cambridge; Emeritus Reader, University of Cambridge; and Visiting Professor, Birkbeck College, University of London.M/p>

Qualifications: Diploma in Economics, University of Oxford; BA, MA and Ph.D. University of Cambridge.

Career: Left school at 15 in 1949. Worked as farm worker, army cook (national service) and ironworker. Ruskin College, Oxford, 1961-63. Kings College, Cambridge, 1963-1969. Researcher, in University of Cambridge, Department of Applied Economics 1969 to retirement.. Currently teaching on trade union degree course at Birkbeck College. Chairman of the Cambridge Political Economy Society, Editor of Cambridge Journal of Economics; Founder member and executive committee member of the Institute for Employment Rights.

Research: Concerned mainly with the effects of institutions and organisations on economic performance.
There are four broad fields:
[1] the effects of institutions and organisations on work organisation, wage systems, employment relationships and labour market structures;
[2] the interaction between trends in real wages, collective bargaining, incomes policy and inflationary processes;
[3] the economic and socio-legal analysis of labour regulation and social security systems and their effect on income distribution, economic and social deprivation, social exclusion, job security and; work intensity and
[4] the effects of differences between productive systems in organisations and institutions and their influence on inter- and intra-firm relationships and industrial performance.

17 December

By Sue Konzelmann, a Reader in Management at Birkbeck, University of London and Frank Wilkinson, a founder member of the Institute for Employment Rights and Emeritus Reader, University of Cambridge.

Both Government and Opposition spokespersons offer the same dire warning. They claim that anything other than persistent austerity will “return the country to the 1930s”. Such claims demonstrate their complete ignorance of what was actually achieved in the 1930s.

15 December 2014

Below is a short blog by John Foster on a presentation given by Keith Ewing. The paper was initially presented in Dublin followed by an updated version in Paris. A copy of that full version is attached.

“As Delors had the wisdom to realise, without enforceable rights workers in some countries may rightly feel that they have no reason to support continuing membership of the EU. If Draghi is right that Social Europe is dead, then so is the EU. The latter message is one we have a duty to express loudly and clearly”.

5 December 2014

By Prof Nicole Busby from the Law School, University of Strathclyde

As Acas publishes statistics on the first six months of compulsory Early Conciliation, Nicole Busby analyses what they tell us about the scheme and its consequences.

1 December 2014

By Steve Ludlam, Steve Ludlam is Senior Lecturer in Politics at The University of Sheffield

Commentary on Cuba’s economic reforms highlights the growing private sector, implying a transition to capitalism. This ignores Cuba’s dominant state sector, its planning system, and the role of private enterprise in socialist transition. For socialists, the defining innovation of capitalism is not private property, but systematic exploitation of ‘free’ wage labour. The reforms give management more autonomy, and diversify the world of work. So what about the workers and their unions? What is in the 2014 Labour Code, and other recent legislation, and what about salaries and job security?

28 November 2014

By Catherine Hobby, Senior Lecturer, School of law and social sciences, University of East London