VOICES AT WORK: LEGAL EFFECTS ON ORGANISATION, REPRESENTATION AND NEGOTIATION

The Leverhulme Trust has awarded the University of Bristol a three year Leverhulme International Network grant to enable research on a project 'Voices at Work: legal effects on organisation, representation and negotiation'. This comparative project, led by Professor Tonia Novitz (University of Bristol) and Dr Alan Bogg (University of Oxford), investigates the relationship between law and workplace participation. Its focus is on legal developments in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the US. Events have been held in Oxford, Toronto and Melbourne to facilitate interaction between academics from diverse disciplines and engage with policy makers, including governments, social partners, NGOs and UN organisations. A roundtable panel session summarising project findings will take place at the inaugural Labour Law Research Network Conference in Barcelona on 14 June 2013; while a day-long event exploring past and future agendas for 'Voice in and out of Work' will be held at the Work Foundation in London on 29 June 2013. An edited collection arising from the project, Voices at Work: Continuity and Change in the Common Law World will be published by Oxford University Press in 2014. Further information can be found on the Voices at Work website: www.voicesatwork.org.uk.

This project examines the legal mechanisms that allow workers voice inside and beyond the workplace, as well as the ways in which laws can impede voice. We engage in comparative study of different common law jurisdictions to consider lessons learnt elsewhere about the ways in which laws can operate in practice, always bearing in mind that there are significant differences between the various systems of industrial relations considered.

Preliminary findings are available in a Special Issue of the Comparative Labor Law and Policy Journal (2012) Vol. 33(3). Special issues, which focus on developments in North America and Australasia, are also forthcoming in the Osgoode Hall Law Journal and the Adelaide Law Review, respectively.

Further findings have been presented in Barcelona at the LLRN conference on 13-15 June 2013 and at the London event on 29 June 2013. For further information contact Tonia Novitz at: tonia.novitz@bristol.ac.uk and the co-investigator, Alan Bogg: alan.bogg@hertford.ox.ac.uk.