MIRS - Programme of Meetings

Annual Arthur Priest lecture - From Potential to Pressure: Mapping Generative AI’s Disruption of UK Jobs 9 October, 2025

Dr Golo Henseke, Associate Professor in Applied Economics, Institute of Education, University College London with discussants: Prof Irena Grugulis, University of Leeds; Emma Brookes, Chair, Manchester CIPD Branch

This year's Arthur Priest Memorial Lecture in conjunction with the Manchester branch of the CIPD will take place on October 9, 6pm-7:30pm at Manchester Metropolitan Business School, Lecture Theatre 33 (and online).

There has been much debate in recent years concerning the potential and actual impact of AI on jobs and the nature of work. This talk introduces the Generative AI Susceptibility Index (GAISI), a novel measure showing how UK jobs are exposed to AI like ChatGPT. GAISI reveals widespread but moderate AI exposure across nearly all jobs (94%), with high-skilled roles most susceptible, marking a departure from previous automation trends. Since 2017, aggregate exposure has risen due to shifts in employment towards more AI-susceptible occupations. Critically, our findings show early evidence of significant labour market disruption: the labour demand in these occupations weakened notably post-ChatGPT, with job postings estimated 5.5% lower in Q2 2025 than expected had pre-GPT hiring trends continued. The hiring slump coincides with declining employment of under-30-year-olds in heavily exposed occupations. This suggests displacement effects may currently outweigh productivity gains, creating tangible pressure on UK jobs and early career workers.

Golo's presentation will be followed by comments from Emma Brookes (CIPD) and Irena Grugulis (University of Leeds).

Please register your in person or virtual attendance at Eventbrite.

BWEI and MiRS Lecture 2025 with Professor Virginia Doellgast
Building worker voice and power in AI decisions: Three cases in the German ICT industryDecember 11, 3-4.30pm

The lecture will be held on Thursday 11th December from 3pm in the Penthouse, Alliance Manchester Business School. This will be followed by a small drinks and canapes reception in the room.

Please register attendance via Eventbrite.

Building worker voice and power in AI decisions: Three cases in the German ICT industry

Virginia Doellgast (Cornell University, USA), Tobias Kämpf (University of Labour, Germany), Barbara Langes (Institute for Social Science Research, Germany)

Abstract

This paper compares works council initiatives to influence the adoption and deployment of AI-based tools in three German Information and Communications Technology (ICT) companies, with the aim of investigating the conditions for workers to establish collective voice in these decisions. In all three case studies, works councils strengthened worker voice in decisions concerning the use of management-automating AI technologies in areas such as performance monitoring and workforce analytics. However, they faced more challenges in encouraging alternative approaches to skill development and employment restructuring associated with work-automating AI. Institutional and discursive power resources help to explain both their overall success in strengthening voice and different outcomes across AI applications.

Speaker Bio

Virginia Doellgast is the Anne Evans Estabrook Professor of Employment Relations and Dispute Resolution in the ILR School at Cornell University. Her research focuses on the comparative political economy of labor markets and labor unions, inequality, precarity, and democracy at work. She is currently studying the impact of digitalization and AI on job quality in in the ICT services and game development industries, based on comparative research in North America and Europe. Past research projects have compared labor union responses to restructuring and employer collective action in the telecommunications sector; and worker voice and well-being in call centers.

Other meetingsVarious dates

More details on future meetings will be made available via our website and distribution lists in due course but we have some dates lined up for forthcoming talks.

On Thursday February 12 at 6pm we will be hosting a joint meeting with the Industrial Law Society, with Dr Manoj Dias-Abey from the University of Bristol presenting on the evolution of the post-Brexit labour immigration system and the labour market implications of the UK government's immigration white paper. On Thursday 19 March, Dr Jamie Woodcock of King's College London will present on union organising in the video game industry and will be accompanied by a game worker involved in organising in the sector with the IWGB.

Finally, we will be hosting two events in May 2026 which are currently being finalised. This will include our annual Shirley Lerner memorial lecture, and we will be holding a further event later in May to mark the centenary of the 1926 General Strike.

We will circulate more details on these meetings in due course and hope to seee you there.

Past Meetings...

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