MIRS - Meetings Archive 2021-22

Ian Manbord, Equality and Diversity Organiser for Equity, and John Shortell, Head of Equality, Diversity & Inclusion for the Musicians' Union.

This MIRS session provides an opportunity to gain insight to the challenges of organising self-employed workers across the entertainment industry. Representatives of both Equity and MU will provide an overview of the dominant, prevailing challenges of organising and mobilising across highly precarious, segmented groups of workers, and the innovative strategies deployed to maintain existing membership and recruit new members. Additionally, the session will provide insight on the combined negative impacts arising from the EU-UK Trade and Co-operation Agreement and Covid pandemic on the sector, its workers, and organising strategies.

The meeting will be held over Zoom at 6pm-7.30pm on 14 October - book now to receive the Zoom link!

Joint meeting with the CIPD and the Work and Equalities Institute at the University of Manchester

This meeting is an opportunity to remember and reflect on the work and contribution of our colleague Professor Mick Marchington, who sadly died in February 2021.

Mick was a former president of MIRS and made a huge contribution to the academic study of human resource management, and through his work with the CIPD made a lasting impact on the status of academic research and critical social science within the teaching and accreditation of HRM among practitioners.

Our event will involve a panel featuring Prof Jill Rubery, Prof Damian Grimshaw, Prof Tony Dundon and Dr Gail Hebson, who worked on numerous major research projects with Mick on topics including the fragmentation of work and employee voice.

This will be followed by a panel of speakers from the CIPD (Ali House, Heather Bond and Jonny Gifford) who worked closely with Mick in translating research into professional standards for practitioners and will also talk about the new CIPD research fund named in Mick’s honour.

The event will be held at 6pm-7.30pm on Thursday 18 November over Zoom, and you can register here via Eventbrite: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/mirs-meeting-18-november-2021-remembering-mick-marchington-tickets-191556138567.

Joint meeting (online) – Manchester Industrial Relations Society and Industrial Law Society

Professor Alan Bogg, University of Bristol

What is 'fire and rehire'? Why is it controversial? And what can be done about it?
In this lecture, Professor Alan Bogg provides a legal perspective on 'fire and rehire'. 'Fire and rehire' describes a practice whereby an employer dismisses employees and then re-engages them on new contracts with worse terms and conditions. There have been many high-profile disputes reported in the media, including British Gas, British Airways, and Clarks Shoes. It has also attracted the attention of Parliament, culminating in an important Private Member's Bill introduced by Barry Gardiner MP.
The lecture will provide a critical examination the current legal framework. This gives employers wide freedoms to engage in 'fire and rehire' with impunity. It then explores the options and prospects for legal reform..

The event will begin at 6pm on February 24, 2022. Please register with Eventbrite to receive the meeting's Zoom link.

Dr Cecile Guillaume, University of Surrey

This is the first book in a new series published by Bristol University Press in conjunction with the British Universities Industrial Relations Association (BUIRA). The book explores the conditions of women's representation in four trade unions, in France and the UK. By drawing on a case study methodology, it investigates how institutional contexts at different levels (European, national, local) interfere, constrain or facilitate the promotion of gender equality within trade unions and in the labour market. First, through the analysis of more than one hundred activists' careers, the study unveils the social, organisational and political conditions that contribute to the reproduction of gender inequalities or, on the contrary, allow the promotion of equality within trade unions, depending on contexts and periods. Second, through an socio-historical study of the trade unions' struggle for equal pay in the UK, the book offers a nuanced reading of the ways in which trade unions represent the interests of their female members. Far from assuming a mechanical link between the presence of women and the promotion of their interests, this research examines the conditions under which some "critical actors" have promoted unconventional forms of protest and large-scale legal actions to advance equality in the labour market.

The event will begin at 6pm on March 10, 2022. Please register with Eventbrite to receive the meeting's Zoom link.

Shirley Lerner Memorial Lecture

Professor Peter Turnbull, University of Bristol

We will be holding this meeting as an in-person event in Room G.34, Manchester Metropolitan University Business School (just off Oxford Road by All Saints Park). There will be a social event afterwards, and we look forward to seeing some of you in person after two years of virtual meetings.

There will be a social event after the meeting and a Zoom link will be sent to those attending remotely prior to the event.