Protecting the Future of Work

This volume contributes to innovation in theory and policy debate in industrial relations and entails a stimulating and topical analysis of the role and practices of trade unions, new forms of regulation, and labour standards in times of challenge and transformation.

-- Mia Rönnmar, Professor, Faculty of Law, Lund University, Sweden, and Past-President of the International Labour and Employment Relations Association.

This edited volume is a thought-provoking, conceptually rigorous and urgent analysis of changes in labour market regulation and employment relations over recent times. The shift the authors identify towards a ‘patchwork of rules’ is illustrated through the impressive line of chapters covering unfamiliar areas like the ‘gig economy’ in China. A must-read for understanding contemporary developments in employment relations and a fitting tribute to Professor Willy Brown.

-- Heather Connolly, Associate Professor, Department People, Organizations and Society, Grenoble Ecole de Management, France
This volume brings together some of the best thinkers about how the regulation of work and employment is changing around the world to mark the legacy of Professor Willy Brown. The chapters explore how the regulation of our working lives is changing; sometimes optimistically, sometimes pessimistically. But always with an attention to detail that defines Willy's intellectual legacy. The authors make important contributions to our understanding of the changes and what they mean to workers, managers, capital, states, and supra-state institutions. -- Melanie Simms, Professor of Work and Employment, Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow, UK
Ongoing upheavals in the world of work, including the rise of platform work, outsourcing and global supply chains, have disrupted and corroded the capacity of established regulatory arrangements, notably collective bargaining, to protect workers and improve working conditions. This stimulating and timely volume examines the new forms of statutory and employer-led, voluntarist regulation that have emerged in response, highlights the institutional experimentation involved, and assesses their interface with traditional arrangements in an evolving regulatory ‘patchwork’. The contributors draw insightfully from developments across a range of countries. -- Paul Marginson, Emeritus Professor of Industrial Relations, University of Warwick, UK
A truly insightful analysis of the world of work in contemporary societies, offering many practical solutions to key problems. Very much in the spirit of Willy Brown's contributions, and a strong testament to how much he has given and continues to give to our subject-area -- Keith Whitfield, Professor of Human Resource Management, Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University