INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS JOURNAL最新文献

This article examines the impact of devolution on employment relations and trade union dynamics in Northern Ireland within the unique framework of its power-sharing institutions. It considers how employment policy has developed under devolution, given that employment law is a devolved matter for the region. It also seeks to address what influence the trade union movement has had on the devolved political arrangements. The article argues that the governing administration has engaged in limited innovation in employment law, although there is evidence of intended and unintended divergence from Westminster policy. It is proposed that while the trade union movement played a critical role under Direct Rule during “the Troubles,” its influence has waned since devolution, although it retains pockets of influence within the local political structure.

This article presents an overview of how industrial relations have been shaped by constitutional devolution across the United Kingdom. It shows that the devolved national governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and English regional authorities led by Metro Mayors, have developed distinctive industrial relations policies that have led to variation in labour market regulation. These policies have typically been developed under the rubric of ‘fair work’ and have been pursued through a variety of methods. The latter include acting as a ‘good employer’, legislation, public procurement, and soft forms of regulation such as good employment charters which have been widely adopted by devolved authorities. The article concludes by reviewing the debate over devolution within industrial relations and notes how political change might foster further experimentation in the future.

In the context of reduced opportunities for traditional forms of union organising, this paper asks: how well do digital campaigns facilitate the advancement of trade union aims? The paper examines a campaign to secure a Right to Disconnect (RtD) for workers in the financial services sector in Ireland. Through interviews with key actors including union organisers and activists, as well as an in-depth examination of secondary data, including union social media, policy documentation and survey data, this paper outlines the strategies underpinning the campaign, the techniques employed at various stages, and the outcomes achieved. The findings demonstrate how unions can advance their regulatory function through organising and contributes to our practical understanding of the orchestration of digital campaigns through a multifaceted approach, strategically targeting different stakeholders concurrently.

This article examines voice and silence on workplace problems in Big 4 professional service firms. Based on interviews in Ireland, workers reported problems in relation to workload and hours, underperforming colleagues, mistreatment, pay, leave time, and promotion. Silence was the dominant response reflecting workers' implicit understanding of organisationally desired worker attributes. Where voice occurred, it was individual and informal. Our analysis places voice as a site of antagonistic worker-management relations, and we contribute to the emerging labour process critique of employee resilience as a tool of management control.

Actors who deliver state policy on low wage precarious workers on the front-line manage coercion and exploitation in the workplace by accepting the presence of both through permissiveness rather than seeking enforcement of labour market regulations. To develop this argument the article examines permissiveness in compliance, deterrence, and intelligence approaches used by regulators and enforcement agencies. The article provides a contribution to understanding the limitations of current approaches to labour market regulation which oversee noncompliance, confine deterrence activities to specific sectors, and use intelligence sources for law enforcement rather than labour market enforcement. The contribution does so by examining enforcement agency actors, and regulatory actors as hard-to-engage actors who play a critical part in the formulation labour market regulation policy on the front-line.

In the digital age, working remotely has become the new normal for many employees in most European countries. In Austria too, the context of the present study, remote work was once considered to be the exception rather than the rule. Nevertheless, it became indispensable for an unforeseen number of employees, especially within the last couple of years. In line with this transformation of the labour market, more flexibility over both time and place of work leads to a sense of more autonomy for employees. However, the increase of autonomy comes with paradoxical consequences as the new circumstances introduce different modes of control. Therefore, the present paper aims to explain how the autonomy-control paradox works from an employee's perspective, by applying a two-phase explanatory sequential mixed methods design. Our results are based on quantitative data using the Micro Census as well as the Austrian AKCOVID Panel Survey and a set of 33 problem-centred semi-structured interviews. The findings of our quantitative study indicate that especially employees regularly working remotely perceive increased levels of both autonomy and control. The analyses of our qualitative interviews deepen the understanding of this paradox as we discuss eight subcategories in an exemplary typology representing ideal-typical characteristics on a continuum where we evaluate individual preferences and the actual working situation using a schematic illustration in a two-dimensional model.

The UK is often viewed as a centralised entity that has pursued neoliberal policies. Yet its political system features devolved parliaments whose governments deploy responsibilities including those linked to employment relations. This article explores the Welsh Government's role within employment relations to argue that it has shaped pathways to substate variation by (1) defining the procedural status of other actors through creating social partnership structures (2) deploying its role as employer, funder, and procurer to influence employer behaviour, and (3) making some statutory regulation. We conclude that the Welsh Government is part of an increasingly fragmented regulatory state within the UK that offers some opportunities for subnational actors to create divergences within its national system of employment relations.

Chung, H., and S. Yuan. 2025. “Did COVID-19 Level the Playing Field or Entrench It? Comparing Patterns of Homeworking by Ethnicity, Gender and Migration Status, Before, During and After COVID-19 in the UK.” Industrial Relations Journal 56: 236–250. https://doi.org/10.1111/irj.12462

The funding information was incorrect in the previous version. It was written as ‘This project received funding from the Trade Union Congress project on “Black and Minority ethnic workers” experience of home and hybrid working’ and the Productivity Institute funded project “Hybrid Working And Productivity: Exploring Flexibility Stigma And Racial Inequalities”.

This should be changed to ‘This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council [grant number: ES/V002740/1]—for the Productivity Institute funded project “Hybrid Working And Productivity” and from the Trade Union Congress project on “Black and Minority ethnic workers” experience of home and hybrid working’.

We apologize for this error.