This article critically examines the complex dynamics related to dignity at work (DAW) in contemporary precarious employment in the United Kingdom. It argues that current DAW frameworks are typically focused on workers with one job, but what about the experiences of those who need to work in multiple jobs to make ends meet? To consider this, the article focuses on the complex experiences related to dignity when navigating between and participating in different workplaces, presenting the notion of 'dignity in, out and between work'. It provides a four-dimensional framework to renew DAW debates. The first two reflect original DAW frameworks revealing 'work intensification' and 'poor management, exploitation and abuse'. However, this article expands these conceptually and empirically by presenting a thematic broadening of work intensification and extensification across a mixture of jobs, with fragmented and complex temporal and spatial aspects of work. The third and fourth dimensions contribute two significant elements to DAW discussions. 'Stigma, humiliation and shame' incorporates issues such as in-work poverty and foodbank use. Finally, we emphasise tensions related to 'the value of work', where workers' contribution was not appreciated even if they held socially significant jobs.

This study explores employee voice and participation within small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and non-union contexts. It seeks to better understand how informal relations develop and configure forms of participation, and how the memories of the workforce - in relation to representation and regulation - contribute to the nature of employment relations in SMEs. Drawing from a qualitative enquiry comprising two case studies, the findings illustrate how a diversity of approaches to employee voice within informal spaces may be understood. This variation even within non-union contexts is in part attributable to organisational memories, the experiences of internal management relations, and the idiosyncrasies linked to the composition of the workforce and their previous collective experiences of unionised settings.

A growing and significant ‘new-wave’ of literature maintains that studies on equality and inclusion in labour representation would benefit from a stronger focus on collective action led by (migrant) precarious workers, both within but especially beyond established unions. The debate also incorporates and overlaps with the growing recognition of intersectional approaches to industrial relations and the need to think more inclusively about identities at work. Starting from a reflection on these theoretical developments, the article discusses the (direct or indirect) implications of this literature for the established forms of interest representation and argues that the move to a more inclusive and less institutionalised approach would benefit from a greater sensitivity to organisational tensions and representative claims. In particular, it cautions against a binary and deterministic notion of worker organising and makes the case for considering the ‘space between’, which allows for a recognition of the ambivalent nature of trade unions.

Abstract This chapter examines the relevance of governance and regulation debates for work psychology researchers. Beginning with varieties of capitalism and national business systems explanations for why systems of governance vary, the chapter then looks to debates on organizational fields to examine how systems of governance evolve and how isomorphic pressures lead to the proliferation of dominant ideas and forms of governance. Attention then turns to regulation-based debates around governance. The chapter highlights the growing interest in the concept of regulatory spaces, which focusses on interrelations, alliances, and tensions between different actors within the regulation of labour–management relations. The chapter concludes with suggesting potential research agendas to build bridges between academic disciplines.

This article focuses on the changing role of trade unions in relation to ‘the foundational economy’ – the infrastructures and services that provide the basis for everyday life. While such initiatives have sometimes been considered as falling beyond the traditional remit of union action, examples of trade union engagement in and for the foundational economy are historically and currently evident across countries. The article argues that these are important in the realm of trade union strategies with attempts to widen engagement and participation in broader economic issues, particularly in post-2008 economic austerity and after the pandemic and the cost-of-living crises. The article explores these issues based on the intersection between different dimensions and levels of union action.

The discussion between Jane Holgate and Miguel Martínez Lucio aims to reflect on some of the issues in the development and learning dimension of worker representatives and activists. It is mainly based on experiences in the United Kingdom but aims to look at some strategic issues and changes that link into broader international developments and cases. Jane Holgate has worked with a range of trade unions in the United Kingdom and has a strong sense of developments in North America – especially around the ‘organising’ tradition. She is an activist academic, and with some of her colleagues has been key to the development of Ella Baker School of Organising and been involved in Critical Labour Studies for some time. Miguel Martínez Lucio as an activist-academic and a participant in the Critical Labour Studies network, has been involved in trade union education and research support at certain points of his career in the United Kingdom and been involved in trade union and political education and sessions in a number of European contexts (in particular, Spain). For many years he has, for example worked with UNITE, UNISON, and Communication Worker activists in several sectors in the United Kingdom and in projects involving the CCOO in Spain, the CGIL in Italy and the European Trade Union Institute. The purpose of this discussion is to consider some of the challenges in terms of training and learning within the labour movement and how they have evolved over time. We are at a key moment where the decline of organisational spaces dedicated to the learning and development of trade union and worker representatives is intensifying, and where new technological opportunities and alternatives are not as clear or easily available as one would have as first imagined.

The issue of precarious work and fragmented labour markets remains as important as ever in the 21st century. In addition, the issue of unpaid labour has entered the mainstream lexicon of both academic and policy debates. In a shift that is not only economic but also political in nature, the current socio-economic system is becoming increasingly reliant on the input of workers and the way they subsidise capitalist endeavours. These issues, and how they should be responded to, have been the subject of extensive academic study. In their new book, Valeria Pulignano and Markieta Domecka discuss the increasing visibility of unpaid labour in a range of sectors and contexts. Far from just being seen as stigmatised and problematic, the issue of unpaid labour relies on a new conceptualisation of work which implies that workers work well beyond their contract and offer employers free tangible assets in terms of time and creativity. The book focuses on three occupations, showing how the digitalisation and broader demographic changes that have occurred under neoliberalism have impacted on dancers who have become independent contractors, on freelancers whose professional existence has moved to online platforms and on care workers who are subjected to intense decentralised service provision. The book discusses the impact of these changes on inequality and class, with some workers having a greater ability than others to offer certain resources to their 'employers' or 'contractors' based on their class and social position. In this sense, unpaid labour is not just a manifestation of injustice and exploitative capitalist behaviour, but is actively enacted by workers in their attempts to sustain their jobs and their professional skills and identity. These micro-political dynamics are effectively explored in the book, drawing on current and past academic debates and on an original and extensive set of research interviews rich in detail and personal insight. The role of different resources that are available to workers is highlighted throughout the book. Individual financial resources and how these may vary according to family circumstances, welfare resources and the variable role of state provision are explored as political and class factors that are key to understanding the nature of unpaid labour. Central to this book is the political notion in terms of policy interventions and the broad processes that frame and condition unpaid work within different occupational and national contexts. The authors link the personal and social spheres of workers into broader social and political dynamics, showing the importance of class, both materially and socially. 'In a nutshell, our argument is that the underpinnings of unpaid labour, i.e. the structural and ideological conditions promoting and legitimizing it, encompass both the private (domestic) household sphere and the public paid employment sphere where regulatory arrangements provided through state policy and other institutions (e.g., welfare, collective bargaining) may help sustain it—although to different extents—within different national settings…' (Pulignano and Domecka, 2025: 6). Focusing on this issue of self-exploitation, the book shows how workers have to mobilise non-work-related individual and collective social resources to sustain their employment and their career trajectories. However, even as these workers can be seen to undermine stable work by contributing their own knowledge and resources, unpaid, to the employment relation, their creativity, value and moral underpinnings are (perhaps unintentionally) revealed, exemplifying the curious dependence of capitalism on the social and individual capacities of these workers. Rather than just embracing an optimistic approach to the new forms of struggles, strikes or conflict that are emerging, the book points to the subliminal and potential issue of self-management and worker autonomy as responses. By showing how we can more broadly reframe our views of workers' inputs, the book effectively maps and explains the social and political dynamics of unpaid labour and how it has become an integral part of the socio-economic system. It also reveals the fundamental dependence of both employers and the state on these inputs. Taken together with other ways in which workers are self-sacrificing, this points to a significant Achilles' heel existing within the neoliberal labour market and the state. The book is a major landmark in the study of precarious work, and unpaid work especially. The three empirical chapters reveal the way worker sacrifices occur across the three occupations in an empirically transparent and novel way. The voices of workers are introduced to illustrate the stigma associated with unpaid labour, how it is performed and how it links into precarious work, as well as how the notion of the 'ideal worker' is mobilised by employers. We see how workers use their capabilities to sustain themselves minimally and in survival mode, but also as a way of realising their emancipatory potential as resources and citizens. It is this curious irony that marks for me the significance of the book's contribution, with its illuminating approach to the contradictions and tensions within precarious work. In the current context of savage capitalism we see curious moments of resilience within which rests an alternative potential, although how this potential unfolds may mean looking at the role of other power resources and organisational factors as well. In many senses this book forms part of a key set of significant texts on precariousness and work such as The Precariat or The Corrosion of Character. The book operates with an advanced and nuanced theoretical framework, using extensive academic referencing and locating the empirical dimension within the ongoing debates and insights of the sociological and industrial relation traditions. The authors develop their argument acknowledging others who have contributed to the chapters and this inclusive form of authorship mirrors the inclusive nature of referencing and intellectual acknowledgment that is a hallmark of the book. As the excellent preface and acknowledgements show, the book is not merely a one-off monograph but the outcome of a broader collective discussion.

This article offers a critical reflection of the challenges of conducting bibliometric analysis in cross-national comparative industrial relations research on workplace equalities. Drawing on a scoping exercise designed to map equality research in the United Kingdom, France, Spain, and the Netherlands, we demonstrate how bibliometric methods struggle to capture situated knowledge and translate contested concepts across national contexts. While bibliometric approaches can offer useful insights when carefully deployed, uncritical applications risk producing 'thin' and decontextualised findings. We engage with debates on English Language Predominance, conceptual equivalence, and epistemological diversity, and argue for more reflexive, pluralistic, and 'slow' comparative research, sensitive to the socially constructed and locally situated language on equality at work.

This chapter reviews the development and impact of ULRs in the UK, an innovative form of specialist representation that was part of wider union engagement with learning, training and skills issues as a facet of union ‘renewal’ within the workplace and beyond. The chapter explores notions of mutual gains and contestation in relation to learning, the development of the ULR role within unionised workplaces, and the strategic but contested orientations of unions towards learning and ULRs. During the 1997–2010 Labour governments, this dimension of industrial relations was seen as a way of forging mutual gains between workers and management, engaging more marginalised workers in learning and their unions and contributing to a narrative of union renewal following two decades of union decline. However, the fragmented nature of the UK learning and skills system, the limits of ‘partnership’ approaches and a lack of institutional embeddedness for unions in terms of negotiating and bargaining over skills and training placed limits on their effectiveness even when government was broadly supportive of this work. Since 2010, austerity-driven retrenchment and marketisation of adult learning provision has created major challenges for the ULR role, including the contradictions of attempting to raise demand for increasingly difficult-to-access educational services, and the seeming marginalisation of the role due to wider pressures on union representative facility time from employers and in some cases a lack of support from unions themselves.

This article examines how trade unions in Chile adopted legal mobilisation to address a sociotechnical transformation agenda that triggered wage decline and work intensification. The proposed change involved the implementation of a Functional Flexibility Plan by a multinational retailer, facilitated by in-store logistics and supermarket front-end sales technologies. Connecting a Sociotechnical Approach with Employment Relations studies, and using longitudinal qualitative methodologies, the findings show how trade unions were able to circumvent collective bargaining difficulties through strategic litigation, organisational misbehaviour, and political lobbying. This demonstrates that legal mobilisation can be an effective strategy for addressing the labour-related outcomes of sociotechnical change in a regulatory context where union bargaining power is weak and legal constraints limit negotiations over work organisation. However, in the absence of regulatory frameworks that formally incorporate trade union decision-making on crucial issues, such as the design and implementation of new technologies, legal mobilisation remains reactive and confined to responding to the consequences of such changes for labour.

This paper aims to stimulate debate within the employment involvement participation, and worker representation, discussions. We use the work of cleaning in the UK as our main example. This work was perceived as ‘essential’ during the Covid19 pandemic, and ‘valued’ in the social perception and the nationalist discourse of solidarity and sacrifice. Yet there was a particular set of political interventions that contested the need for rewarding such a contribution by individualising it and reframing it politically. The main argument we propose is that there is a greater need in discussions on employee participation and worker representation to focus on how the social and economic contribution of certain groups of workers is politically represented and contested, and not just their voice in formal or informal terms. Debates on participation and representation are beginning to move in this direction of widening the remit of the way the value of work is outlined and the article aims to build on this by focusing on such tensions around the representation of value at the political level and at key national moments of crisis in terms of the state and related actors.

Neoliberalism has in some senses evolved into a sub-discipline of its own. A series of academic texts have emerged looking beyond the fetishizing of market relations and emergent political dominance to locate neoliberalism in a historical context. Some of the discussions locate pivotal moments of change such as the 1980s and the emergence of the New Right; others look back to trace the dominance of market relations, institutionally visible for some time beyond the writing of key figures such as Friedrich Hayek. This review essay focuses on two texts – Quinn Slobodian, Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism (2018) and Nathalie Lévy et al ., The Anglo-American Model of Neoliberalism of the 1980s (2022) – both of which demonstrate the importance of historical analysis and sensitivity. Slobodian considers how neoliberal thought became central to state institutions and an international order long before the periods we normally scan historically as social and political observers. Lévy et al . focus on the construction and dissemination of neoliberalism in various national contexts nearly half a century ago and the attempts to ensure its dominance since then.

Establishing voluntary labor standards depends on securing the voluntary engagement of multiple actors with potentially diverging interests. This paper examines the legitimation politics and processes surrounding attempts to develop local labor standards through an empirical study of local employment charters in England. These forms of soft regulation, promoted by local state actors, ask employers to commit to flexible 'good' work principles. We argue that legitimation processes are central to debates around new forms of 'soft regulation', highlighting how building legitimacy entails compromises and potential legitimacy risks for others.

This article provides an in-depth analysis of the dynamics of social dialogue in Spain and highlights that to understand the relations between organised labour and the state a greater degree of historical sensibility in the way risks and calculations are developed in terms of exchanges and expectations is required. It goes beyond traditional institutionalist analysis to further understand how social dialogue at the state level occurs across different and complex trade-offs within political networks, even in weaker state contexts such as that of Spain. The article uses interviews with union leaders from the main Spanish unions involved in different historical moments to understand a range of uneven or opaque activities, the features of which can only be understood by expanding what we mean by the notion of political exchange, as well as the deliberate or conscious calculations and longer-term risks of such exchanges during different points in time.