Negotiating Law and Work (Session 1)

Description

Negotiating law and work: Enabler or barrier to entry?

This first seminar launches the programme with an interdisciplinary perspective on the role of law, reflecting on the ways in which it can facilitate but equally prohibit entry into the labour market. The discussion will consider the implications of marking individuals as ‘illegal’, together with the role of the law in regulating informal and/or casual labour particularly within the context of an increasingly fragmented labour market.

Panel Session:

Amy Ludlow (Law, University of Cambridge)

Ludlow will discuss the ways in which the European Commission has held up UK employment law as a model of ‘flexicurity’ – an optimum balance between flexibility and security. While in recent years the law has made it easier for more people to work in different ways – Zero Hours Contracts, part time work, agency work, flexible work, Ludlow will examine the terms of such changing labour conditions. What vision of ‘good work’ and ‘good labour markets’ is the law pursuing?

Peter Rogers (School of Management, University of Sheffield)

Russia and Ukraine consistently find themselves towards the bottom of a variety of international benchmark indexes, relating to levels of corruption within the business environment. Rodgers will argue that to fully understand the manifestations of corrupt business practices in Russia and Ukraine, there is a need to unpack what we mean by ‘corruption’ and take into account the specific cultural and political legacies of the contexts in which these informal practices take place.

Pietro Saitta (Cultural Studies, University of Messina, Italy)

Saitta will interrogate the dominant assumption that social protection and welfare was diffused across Europe in the post-war period, and only today experiencing increasing austerity, insecurity, and ‘neoliberal’ regimes. Drawing on historical as well as contemporary examples in Italy, Saitta discusses the heterogeneous conditions of work across different categories of workers, contracts and forms of protections at the margins.

 

Readings for next session (28.10.15) will be made available today.

 

 

 

Open to all.  No registration required
Part of the Rethinking Work Research Group Seminar Series

Administrative assistance: gradfac@crassh.cam.ac.uk