Past Events
| 10th March 2022 | online (Zoom) |
Graduate careers and Covid-19: Winners and losers Researchers at the Warwick Institute for Employment Research have been tracking a large sample of UK graduates from their application for a place in Higher Education in 2005/6, through graduation in 2009/10 and into their subsequent careers. Most recently they were contacted in 2020-21 as they were experiencing the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. The seminar focused on: What participants' accounts of their experiences reveal about the effect of higher education on their capacity to survive the social and economic impacts of the pandemic? What might this tell us about the future of work for highly qualified workers? Speakers: Kate Purcell, Peter Elias, Gaby Atfield and Erika Kispeter. |
| Tuesday, 16 March 2021 | online Teams |
Women’s (un)paid work, class and COVID-19 in the UK Details: Do ‘unsettled times’ such as those created by the Covid-19 pandemic create an opportunity for ‘gender undoing’ (as opposed to ‘gender doing’) (Risman) and for challenging and changing everyday work practices (Elson)? Or has the pandemic intensified existing gender and class-based disadvantages both at home and in the workplace, bringing with it the prospect of an attack on - or at best a stalling of - equality in work in the UK? In this paper, we explore the impact of COVID-19 on the paid and unpaid work of working class women, including comparisons with women and men in other class groupings. We know already that working class women are more likely than other women to work part-time and to work in low-paid sectors and jobs (the ‘5C’ job-areas: cleaning, catering, clerical work, cashiering and caring). The pandemic has highlighted the essential work of working class women, work which brings with it severe risks to working class women’s working lives and well-being. For example, for women working in close contact with customers, clients and patients, COVID-19 brings work intensification and life-threatening health risks (e.g. those undertaking personal care in over-stretched care homes and hospitals). For many others, national and regional lockdowns have increased work instability, financial hardship and insecurity. As well as the impact on paid work, the division of domestic labour has been brought into sharper focus with lockdown. There was limited research on class differences in the division of domestic labour before the pandemic: some research shows middle class men are more likely to share housework, especially if the female partner is also working; other studies show that working class men have more traditional attitudes but are more likely to ‘pick up the slack’ if the female partner is working and they are less likely to draw on the services of paid cleaners. Overall, the picture is one of ‘stalled progress’, with working women in couples still doing a disproportionate amount of housework and child- and other care, before the pandemic. We explore whether anything has changed since the pandemic began by asking, in partnered households with children, who is more or less likely to do the housework and caring for children with school and nursery closures, self-isolation and home-schooling? Class also shapes the places and spaces where paid work is carried out. During lockdown, middle-class families have been more able to take advantage of flexible working arrangements, including working from home, in order to help them manage their additional responsibilities. The availability to work from home does not necessarily spell good news for middle-class women, however, in terms of the sharing of housework and childcare with partners. This paper draws on new survey data on the impact of COVID-19 on women and men in the UK. In 2020, participants in the ‘UK Household Longitudinal Study’ were invited to take part in new monthly surveys and 17,450 participants filled in a first-wave questionnaire in April. Our study looks at employed women and men, and class variation in their experiences, over time. The project ‘Carrying the work burden of the Covid-19 pandemic: working class women in the UK’ is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, as part of UK Research and Innovation’s rapid response to COVID-19 (Project ES/V009400/1), and is in partnership with the Women’s Budget Group. |
| Wednesday 17 February 2021 | online |
Lorenzo Feltrin will discuss his work on noxious deindustrialisation, drawing on research on the petrochemical production in Grangemouth, Scotland. Please feel free to share this invitation with colleagues and students who may be interested. We have booked 90 minutes to allow for a Q&A session and any CREW networking after Lorenzo’s presentation. Details: Noxious deindustrialisation is defined as employment deindustrialisation in areas where burdensome industries are still active. Its main driver is industrial automation in a context of slow output growth, which raises industrial productivity while expelling workers from industry itself. Noxious deindustrialisation is thus an on-going and self-reproducing process linked to operating factories that need less living labour than they used to while they continue to expose nearby communities to the burdens of heavy industry. Lorenzo Feltrin holds a PhD in Politics and International Studies (University of Warwick). His research interests are in the areas of labour, social movements and political ecology. Lorenzo was a member of the research team working on the European Research Commission (ERC)-funded project Toxic Expertise. |
| Wednesday 19 February 2020 | Warwick Business School, Room 1.003 |
‘Green Trade Unions in the Workplace and on the Street - Unions and Workers as Environmental/Climate Actors’ What are UK unions doing in different sectoral contexts? What obstacles are they are facing and how can they overcome these obstacles? The starting point for discussion will be the findings of a recently completed project Agreenment. Panel: Sam Mason - Public and Commercial Services Union Sarah Woolley – Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union Simon Boxley – UCU, University of Winchester Nick Lawrence - UCU, University of Warwick Moderator: Ania Zbyszewska – Carleton University (Canada) |
| Wednesday 20 November 2019 |
Speaker: Dr Sheena Johnson, Senior Lecturer in Organisational Psychology, Alliance Manchester Business School Title: Considering the Health and Wellbeing needs of Older Employees Abstract: Following the removal of a formal ‘retirement age’, and changes to the state pension age, there is an increasing trend for people to continue working into older age. Along with a decrease in the number of young people entering the workplace, this means some organisations are relying more and more on older workers. Despite this, there is remarkably little evidence that employers are thinking about the health implications of managing an ageing workforce. In 2017, we set up the Age, Health and Professional Drivers’ Network (AHPD Network) which currently has over 70 member organisations, including transport and logistic firms and representatives, unions, employers and employees. During the research project the team explored the experiences and viewpoints of professional drivers and employers via: interviews with 10 health and safety managers and trainers; 1 focus group; a discussion forum with representatives from a transport union; interviews with 36 drivers of 7.5 to 44 tonne vehicles and 6 managers of two large national companies. Working with network members a set of industry led Best Practice Guidelines were produced focussing on the mental and physical health and wellbeing needs of professional drivers, including targeted content relevant to older employees. The guidelines cover ten areas of health and wellbeing identified through the research as relevant for older workers. These are illustrated in a ‘Wellbeing Wheel’, and are detailed fully in the guidelines available for download here: www.ambs.ac.uk/ahpdn. The Best Practice Guidelines are separated into ten ‘spokes’ showing the key themes relating to driver health and wellbeing, with separate emphasis on Support, Implementation and Evaluation. This seminar will cover changing workforce demographics, consider the health and wellbeing needs of older workers, and detail the findings of our research and content of the guidelines. The guidelines apply to employees of all ages, with highlighted advice of particular relevance to older employees. They are focused specifically on professional drivers but can be used when considering the needs of all employees. |
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Tuesday 2 May 2019 |
Ramphal Building |
Researching Gender(ed) Work: Concepts & Methods DTP Day School/ Not Credit Bearing Course for PhD and MA researchers Ramiro Gomez, ‘Beverly Hills Housekeeper’, 2014. This one day PhD Training Module seeks to explore interdisciplinary perspectives (theoretical and methodological) on the topic of Gender and Work, drawing on the research and teaching expertise across different disciplines, and delivered by members of the Connecting Research on Employment and Work (CREW) network at the University of Warwick. It is open to all research students at the Midlands Training Partnership institutions, including all years of the MPhil/ PhD programme. It is not credit bearing, but provides an opportunity for students researching topics on work, gender and family to meet each other. It is also open to MA students to audit, subject to space. |
| Monday 13 May 2019 | Millburn House |
The Future of Work and Inequalities IAS Research Meeting Together with IRRU, and with funding from IAS, we have organized a research meeting on the theme of Future of Work and Inequalities. The idea behind this event is to stimulate ideas and identify potential future research directions (and collaborations) in this area. As you will see from the programme below, we have invited as speakers a number of external researchers as well as Warwick-based colleagues who are doing exciting work in this field. |
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Tuesday 9 April |
Room 1.007, WBS |
Gender(s) at work: Glassed and Gendered (Kate Carruthers Thomas) On Tuesday 9 April, Warwick will host Kate Carruthers Thomas to present the findings from contemporary UK research on gendered experiences of work and careers in higher education involving female, male, and gender non-binary staff in academic and professional services roles across the organisation. The presentation will draw on the narratives and ‘organisational maps’ of participants in the Gender(s) at Work project and is suitable for academic and professional audiences. Kate Carruthers Thomas is a Senior Research Fellow and Project Manager for the Athena SWAN programme at Birmingham City University, currently researching the role of gender in HE career trajectories and experiences of work using a feminist social geographic lens and narrative/spatial research methods. |
| Tuesday, February 26, 3.00 to 4.30 | R3.25 – Ramphal Building |
Centre for the Study of Women and Gender – University of Warwick Seminar: Abstract: Speaker Bio: This event is free and open to all, with no advance registration required. It will be followed by a reception. Useful Information:
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| Wednesday 7 November 2018 17:00-19:00 | Wolfson Reserach Exchange, Warwick Library |
CREW Networking Event Nice work if you can get it: why job quality matters Job quality matters. In the aftermath of the financial crisis, non-standard employment has grown across Europe and the gig economy threatens to reconfigure work. Worried about these developments, government and political parties across the UK are developing initiatives to promote ‘good work’, ‘decent work’ and ‘fair work’. This panel event discusses how research and policy can help improve job quality across the UK. Speakers: Chris Warhurst (IER), Anne-Marie Greene (Leicester) and Paul Edwards (Birmingham) Discussant: Jimmy Donaghey (IRRU) |
| Tuesday, 1 May 2018, 17:00-19:00 |
Wolfson Research Exchange Warwick Library |
Book Talk Striking Women: Struggles & Strategies of South Asian Women Workers from Grunwick to Gate Gourmet Talk by the authors of Striking Women: Struggles & Strategies of South Asian Women Workers from Grunwick to Gate Gourmet about their development of the research behind the book and its current implications. Speakers: Sundari Anitha and Ruth Pearson |
| Thursday, 26 April 2018, 10.00-13:00 |
Wolfson Research Exchange Warwick Library |
CREW PhD Master Class Innovative Methodologies for Practicing and Translating Research: ON WORK, GENDER AND THE ENVIRONMENT How can you integrate innovative research methods into your project? How can academic research be designed to reach a wider audience using creative forms of communication? How can academics work with labour and social justice groups using socially engaged art? Join Professors Alice Mah and Vivian Price for a PhD Master Class exploring the use of multi-sited ethnography and creative ways of adapting and communicating research by way of feature length and short films, interactive archives, and collaborative image and poster exhibits. Speakers: Prof Alice Mah (Warwick) and Prof Vivian Price (California State University) |
| Wednesday, 25 April 2018, 10:00-16:00 | Social Sciences Building Cowling Room S2.77 |
CREW Research Seminar Exploring just transition and beyond With the inauguration of the ILO Global Forum on Just Transition in late 2017, the concept of ‘just transition’ – for some time now promoted by labour movements – has been mainstreamed into policy debates on climate change-related economic and industrial adaptation, or eco-modernisation. Yet what just transition entails and, crucially, what renders it just in different contexts is not straight forward. Speakers: Sam Adelman (Warwick), Stefania Barca (Coimbra), Alice Mah (Warwick), Vivian Price (Cal State), Nora Räthzel (Umea), Paolo Tomassetti (Adapt, Modena Reggio Emilia), David Uzzell (Surrey), Ania Zbyszewska (Warwick) |
| Wednesday, 31st January 2018, 5 – 7 pm | Wolfson Research Exchange, Warwick Library |
CREW annual networking event Navigating complex transitions from education to work – young people in the UK labour market In an increasingly competitive labour market, young people's experience of moving from education to work has become protracted, unstable and fragmented. Unwaged work, temporary work and involuntary part-time work, often within the gig economy, have become more common, regardless of qualifications. Young people are faced with an important and complex set of decisions. The ESRC-funded project Precarious Pathways to Employment examined the youth labour market in the Midlands from the perspectives of young people themselves, and their employers. Two members of the research team, Kate Purcell and Peter Elias (Institute for Employment Research), will share the findings of this project. Their preliminary report, Present tense, future imperfect? Young people’s pathways into work, was published in Autumn 2017. |
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12:30-1:30 |
Central Hall Westminster, London |
UK Employment Policy in a Changing Europe - Warwick Brexit Briefings on Employment Warwick experts weighing-in on labour market, employment policy and employment rights implications of the UK's withdrawal from the European Union.
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11:30-13:30 12:00-14:00 |
Seminar Room, |
UK Employment Policy in a Changing Europe - Warwick Brexit Briefings on Employment CREW Discussion Seminars Thursday, 26 Oct 2017 11:30-13:30
Friday, 3 Nov 2017 12:00-14:00
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4.00-6.00pm Tuesday 25th April 2017 |
Seminar Room, Wolfson Research Exchange, Library |
'Meet the Editors' and Networking EventLink opens in a new window Where is research heading in the fields of employment, work, and organization? The editors of top journals in the field discuss current and future trends. Featuring: Kim Hoque, associate editor, Human Relations; Professor, Warwick |
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2.00-6.30pm February 28, 2017 |
1.005, Warwick Business School |
Gendered Work in Global Food Commodity ChainsLink opens in a new window A seminar followed by a public lecture by Professor Stephanie Barrientos (University of Manchester), whose research on global value chains and agrifood – including the role of supermarkets – is widely applauded. |
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Past events |
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1-00-3.00pm |
Wolfson Research Exchange, Library |
CREW Networking Lunch and Book Forum To celebrate the launch of Ania Zbyszewska's new book on Gendering European Working Time Regimes (CUP 2016) which brings the relationship between paid and unpaid work to the fore, along with issues of employment regulation in Europe. Discussants: Ralf Rogowski (Law), Guglielmo Meardi (IRRU-WBS), Erika Kispeter (IER). |
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5:00-6:30pm |
1.015 Warwick Business School |
Roundtable Who speaks for labour market outsiders?Link opens in a new window The round table featuring the participants in a British Academy-funded project on ‘The representation of the losers of the crisis’ and two University of Warwick experts on youth employment and on political representation. Participants: Guglielmo Meardi, Duncan Adam (IRRU, Warwick Business School), Melanie Simms (University of Leicester), Bianca Beccalli (University of Milan), Enrico Pugliese (CNR Rome), Stefan Kerber-Clasen (Erlangen-Nurnberg University) Discussants: Kate Purcell (Institute for Employment Research), Michael Saward (PaIS) |
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2.00-4.00pm March 2, 2016 |
Wolfson Research Exchange, Library |
Seminar 'The changing composition of employment in Europe: upgrading or polarisation?' |
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12.30-3.30pm February 19, 2016 |
Millburn House seminar room |
PhD Writing Workshop The Centre for the Study of Women and Gender hosted a workshop for PhD students on writing from your thesis for publication. Led by JaneMaree Maher from Monash University. |
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5.00pm February 18, 2016 |
Ramphal 1.13 |
Seminar (organised with Centre for the Study of Women and Gender) ‘Sex work, work and women as workers: beyond definition debates’ |
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5.00pm November 19, 2015 |
Wolfson Research Exchange, Library |
Lecture Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams spoke about thier new book called Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World without Work. |
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5.00-6.30pm October 28, 2015 |
Wolfson Research Exchange, Library |
Welcome to CREW: An opportunity for faculty and postgraduate students from different departments and centres to meet informally over wine, canapés and short informal presentations by staff from participating departments. |
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5.00-6.30pm November 20, 2015 |
S0.20 Social Sciences Building |
Launch Lecture Professor Colin Crouch, (Department of Sociology, Oxford and Emeritus Professor, Warwick) 'Employment Security in the Neoliberal Age' Capitalism has a perennial problem in its need to combine workers on uncertain incomes and conditions with consumers confident that they can spend. Different national economies present us with a variety of approaches to this dilemma, with varying degrees of success and varied implications for social inequality. Colin Crouch examined this diversity in 30 European societies, with some comparisons with Japanese, Russian and US experience, and how the 2008 financial crisis has changed it. |
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5.00pm |
R0.03/4, Ramphal building |
Visiting Lecture Mary Gatta, School of Management and Labor Relations, Rutgers University (Funded by CREW, IER and Sociology) 'All I Want is A Job: Women and the US Public Workforce System' Mary Gatta, Senior Scholar at Wider Opportunities for Women in Washington DC and lecturer at Rutgers University, shared findings from her new book All I Want is A Job. She revealed the experiences of unemployed women as they navigate the US public workforce system and struggle to survive unemployment during the great recession. The lecture wove together interviews with the unemployed and the "street-‐level bureaucrats" who service them, as well as her own experience of going undercover in the US system. She also discussed American workforce policy through a gender and racial lens, and consider how jobs policy needs to change in today's economy. |
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10.00-1.00pm Friday January 16, 2015 |
A0.26, Millburn House |
PhD/MPhil Workshop 'Studying low waged women—research methods for academic and policy work' |
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12.30pm, |
A0.28, Milburn House |
Student CREW organising meeting |
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May 8, 2015 |
R0.03/R0.04 Ramphal Building |
Festival of Social Sciences: Looking Back, Looking Forward: What's Been Happening to Work and Employment? Researchers studying work and employment discussed their research findings and insights with members of the public and students and staff at the University. We reflected on the key changes in work and employment they have observed over course of their research careers; we also discussed current research in growing areas of employment and unemployment in the UK and internationally. |
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September 2013 |
University of Warwick |
Warwick hosted the British Sociological Association's Work, Employment and Society conference at Warwick in September 2013.The conference had an international focus and was held at a critical time for the study of work. Over the few last years, unprecedented state intervention in the economy and subsequent radical reform plans for the public sector and the welfare state have raised new questions on the ways work is socially regulated: the WES 2013 conference brought together sociologists of work from across the globe to assess the evidence and consider the theoretical implications of changing relations between work, society and the state. Speakers included: •Prof Bridget Anderson, Oxford University •Prof Patrick Bond, Kwa-Zulu Natal •Mr Han Dongfang, China Labour Bulletin •Prof Stefano Harney, Singapore Business School •Prof Anke Hassel, Hertie School, Berlin •Prof Chris Howell, Oberlin College •Prof Bob Jessop, Lancaster University •Prof Ruth Milkman, City University New York •Prof Jackie O’Reilly, Brighton University •Dr Tim Pringle, SOAS •Prof Saskia Sassen, Columbia University •Prof Peter Turnbull, Cardiff University |
