POLITICAL SCIENCE / Labor & Industrial Relations

The word ‘precarity’ is widely used when discussing work, employment or social classes. However, there is no consensus on the precise meaning of the term or how it should best be used to explore social changes. This international and interdisciplinary book offers a distinctive and critical perspective approach to an important topic.

This book explores the representation of women’s interests in the world of work across 4 trade unions in France and the UK. Drawing on case studies, it unveils the social, organisational and political conditions that contribute to the reproduction of gender inequalities or, on the contrary, allow the promotion of equality.

EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. Drawing from the EU-funded DomEQUAL research project across 9 countries in Europe, South America and Asia, this comparative study explores the conditions of domestic workers around the world and the campaigns they are conducting to improve their labour rights.

This book provides a culturally nuanced analysis of key issues relating to youth unemployment. Examining the causes and consequences of youth unemployment, it assesses ways forward to promote economic self-sufficiency.

This agenda-setting book argues that the process of market integration in Europe has undermined the power and influence of European workers and generated significant human costs. In starting from the position of labour, this book offers an alternative approach which balances the needs of justice and efficiency.

Frances C. Galt explores the role of trade unions and women’s activism in the British film and television industries in this important contribution to debates around gender inequality.

The world of work has changed and so have trade unions, with mergers, rebrandings and new unions being formed, but the question is, how fitted are the unions to organize the unorganized? This engaging new book by Bob Smale explores the complex identities projected by contemporary trade unions and asks critical question for the future.

Outsourcing of domestic work in the UK has been steadily rising since the 1970s, but little research has considered White British women. This book argues that outsourced domestic cleaning can either be done as mental and manual skilled work or as manual and ‘natural’ emotional/affective labour, depending on the work conditions.

What’s wrong with work shows that how workers are treated has wide implications beyond the lives of workers themselves.

Recognising gender, race, class and global differences, the book considers the ways formal work is often dependent on informal work and concludes by considering what might make work better.

This important book takes readers behind the closed doors of elite employers to reveal how class affects who gets to the top. Drawing on 200 interviews across four case studies - television, accountancy, architecture, and acting – it explores the complex barriers facing the upwardly mobile.

This book discusses workplace harm through an ultra-realist lens and examines the connection between individuals, their working conditions and management culture. It investigates the reorganisation of labour markets and the shift to flexibility and highlights working conditions and organisational practices within which multiple harms occur.

This edited volume investigates the changing patterns of labour market and unemployment policies in EU member states during the period since the politics of austerity took hold in 2010.