This issue of Futures of Work explores how processes of economic deregulation have impacted working conditions over the past decades. Following the stagflation crisis of the 1970s, the conservative administrations of Reagan and Thatcher in the US and the UK respectively started implementing what are commonly described as neoliberal reforms. Key aspects of their economic programmes were the retrenchment of the government sector, the privatisation of key public services, the liberalisation of the labour market, the outsourcing of production to low-wage regions and the deregulation of the private ..read more

John Apter did not mince his words: ‘I hold Theresa May personally responsible for the fact that policing is on its knees – it’s been personal for her, and it has been incredibly damaging.’ The Chair of the Police Federation, writing in 2019, shortly after May had stood down as leader of the Conservative Party and subsequently as Prime Minister, did not only welcome her resignation, he celebrated ‘The End of May’. Apter accused May of having had ‘utter contempt for policing and those who deliver it’ and saw as her legacy a ‘broken police service’ and the need to put ‘policing, and the safety a ..read more

Even though it’s been around 16 years since the onset of the 2008 financial crisis, its relevance persists as we are still contending with its economic and social repercussions. The crisis of 2008 laid bare the broader impasses confronting the capitalist system globally. The handling of the financial crisis, particularly the government bailout of large investment banks in the United States, Germany and France, as well as commercial banks in Greece, underscored the systemic nature of this crisis. This process saw financial entities accruing greater economic and institutional power, often with s ..read more

For many decades the dominant narrative in academic and political circles regarding the challenges of industrial relations was that of the relocation threat. In a world of international capital mobility with constantly decreasing barriers to trade, capitalist firms – usually in the form of multinational companies with ties in foreign countries – have the upper hand in negotiations with their workers, leveraging their flexibility and/or their viable threat to relocate their production facilities to countries and regions with significantly lower wage levels and labour standards. This global sear ..read more

Since the 1980s, trade union membership as a share of the total workforce has, on average, decreased by 25 per cent. In the same period, wage bargaining has become more decentralised, taking place more often at company level (rather than at sector or industry level), according to statistics provided by the OECD, reflecting a major decline in union bargaining power. Alongside the significant documentation of these changes, a large literature has investigated the potential causes of this decline in bargaining power – trade globalisation, technological change, changes in labour market institution ..read more

In September 2021, food delivery workers in Greece engaged in a fierce battle over their employment status with efood, the country’s dominant food delivery platform. efood has been the main player in the food delivery market since the outset, and the Hellenic Competition Commission has recently expressed fears that it has too large a share of this niche. On 15 September 2021, the company changed the employment status of its drivers from salaried workers to zero-hour independent contractors under the threat of complete dismissal. The hashtag #cancel_efood began to trend overnight on Twitter (no ..read more

Political debate on immigration currently includes very little forward thinking: the current government is desperately trying to make its policies on asylum seekers work; and both parties have pledged to bring down net migration, which has recently been at record levels. Immigration looks like being the hottest topic in the parties’ 2024 election campaigns. But immigration isn’t a short-term election issue. It is integral to how the UK delivers its economic goals and runs key services and industries including health and social care, food production and construction. What will happen to levels ..read more

Ashley Community Housing (ACH) is a social enterprise working to integrate refugee and migrant communities. We employ more than 100 staff in Bristol, Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Coventry of whom more than half have relevant direct lived experience. Access to work is an important part of the journey for many of our clients. But what sort of work? The flow of refugees and migrants into the UK has become a controversial topic in recent years. Brexit, the Illegal Migration Act, the Rwanda plan and predictions of a ‘hurricane’ of migrants have all created a ‘hostile environment’, obscuring attemp ..read more

The UK has experienced record numbers of immigrants in 2022: over 745,000 arrivals. Although the figure fell to 672,000 to the year ending June 2023, immigration was making big headlines in both the media and by the government. With a general election due before the end of 2024, and the Conservatives lagging significantly behind the opposition in opinion polls, the record figures have been used to show a section of the electorate why the government is making certain policy decisions. In May 2023, the government announced that from 2024 it will ban those international students studying taught M ..read more

Migration is an important part of the West Midlands story – it has reshaped Birmingham and the wider region and has made our communities among the most diverse and dynamic in the UK, if not Europe. We have a rich history of diversity from the post-war industrial boom in the area in the 1950s and 60s when much-needed workers from the Commonwealth countries made their way here. Today the makeup of the West Midlands is still constantly changing as we continue to welcome refugees and migrants. Ours is a young and multicultural region with a hyper-diverse language profile. Around 108 different lang ..read more