A new article by Professor Deirdre McCann and Dr Arely Cruz Santiago explores the datafication of working life and presents a new model of Labour/Data Justice. The article - Labour/Data Justice: A New Framework For Labour/Regulatory Datafication - proposes a framework that is designed to capture both the risks of the deterioration of working life at the labour/data nexus and data-driven strategies for effective regulation. This new model of Labour/Data Justice seeks the effective governance of digitalised working life including through data-driven strategies.
The article is an output of the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) project on Labour/Data Justice.
The article is forthcoming in the Journal of Law and Society (2022). A preprint version is available on SSRN.
The Labour/Data Justice project has circulated to our research and policy partners a Research/Impact Agenda on Labour/Data Justice in the Global South. The Agenda is designed to support the investigation, evaluation and reform of law-centred strategies on labour/data justice, with a particular focus on the global South. It presents a research agenda to test our new Labour/Data Justice framework through a set of globally-significant case studies, including on the domestic work sector in Mexico.
The Agenda was authored by Deirdre McCann, Arely Cruz-Santiago, Georgina Rojas Garcia and Karina Patricio Ferreira Lima for the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) Network on Labour/Data Justice.
Research briefings from our project on Decent Work Regulation in Africa have been translated into Spanish. The two briefings – an overview of the DWR-Africa project and an executive summary of our 2019 report on Developmental Enforcement - focus on the implementation of labour laws in the southern African garment industry.
The project materials have been translated with the aim of sharing our project findings with our growing network of collaborators in Latin America. The briefings were translated into Spanish by Decent Work Regulation team member Katrina Patricio Feirreira Lima.
The research briefings are available here.
Decent Work Regulation team member Sufia Singlee has published an op-ed on the recent landmark judgment of the South African Supreme Court in Mahlangu. The article – ConCourt’s Mahlangu judgment is a victory for domestic workers - but more needs to be done - responds to on the landmark ruling of the South African Supreme Court in Mahlangu v Minister of Labour. The Court held that South Africa’s workplace injury legislation is unconstitutional because it excludes domestic workers. The op ed – published in the Daily Maverick – reflects upon what the judgment achieved and its wider significance for domestic workers in South Africa.
See more on Sufia Singlee’s research project on Law’s Dynamic Effects: The Case of South Africa.
This Global Multi-Scalar Dialogue Research Brief outlines the project’s novel approach to stakeholder engagement, which it has designed and tested since 2017.
This is a global multi-scalar model of research design grounded in dialogue with researchers from multiple disciplines and a wide range of non-academic stakeholders. Rather than centring on a single scalar focus, the model involves intersecting engagement at the international-, regional-, and national-levels.
The research briefing highlights the use of the global multi-scalar model in the project on Decent Work Regulation in Africa (DWR-Africa). This project involved key stakeholders in labour law and policy, including government ministries and agencies, trade unions, employers’ associations, buyers, the International Labour Organization and other United Nations agencies, national development institutes, compliance auditors, international and local NGOs, and industry bodies.
The multi-scalar dialogue generated valuable lessons. Extensive stakeholder consultation revealed research topics that might otherwise have been overlooked. These included issues that are rapidly evolving or neglected in the policy debates e.g. work/life balance as a key concern for workers in the garment sector, concerns about risks encountered beyond the workplace, such as unsafe or unreliable transport, complex intersections of formal and informal work, and the challenges posed by fragmented regulatory frameworks. The global multi-scalar dialogue model also produced significant collaborations and continuing dialogue among stakeholders in the region.
This LDJ COVID Research Briefing launched by the Labour Data/Justice (LDJ) Project focuses on the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on domestic workers in Mexico.
The research briefing examines the profound shock to labour markets triggered by the pandemic, as well as its effects on domestic workers’ safety and security.
The briefing also evaluates the threat posed by the crisis to recent progress in extending legal rights to domestic workers in Mexico.
By jeopardising decent work, COVID-19 impedes progress towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The briefing concludes that labour rights remain vital, and that the particular needs of domestic workers need to be considered separately when designing social and labour responses to the crisis.
This LSE Social Policy Blog piece by DWR Project members Professor Deirdre McCann, Professor Kelly Pike and Karina Patricio Ferreira Lima discusses the effects of the COVID-19 crisis on the global garment workforce, with a particular focus on Lesotho.
The blog draws on the research of the DWR-Africa project to explore the need for global cooperation to protect garment workers from the health and safety challenges and economic hardship brought on by the pandemic, including through strengthened worker voice.
The piece assesses the potential of recent international initiatives to support manufacturers and to preserve workers’ incomes, health, and employment. It looks at the Call for Action in the global garment industry that has been adopted by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and endorsed by key signatories and the efforts of Better Work to integrate work/family into policy responses to COVID-19.
This Temporal Casualisation Report by Professor Deirdre McCann investigates the UK Court of Appeal decisions in Uber and Mencap, which are being heard by the Supreme Court in 2020. The paper explores what these cases reveal about the regulatory dimensions of temporal casualisation. It argues that they expose a fracture between, on the one hand, legal frameworks on working time and wages, and on the other hand, the sectoral and gendered treatment of working hours.
The paper highlights the pertinence of Professor McCann's Framed Flexibility Model to conceptualising and regulating working time in these cases, with a particular focus on Mencap. It argues that each of the cases embodies one of the two principal conceptions of working time in labour regulation frameworks: productivity regulation and the unitary approach. By proposing a location-based unitary approach applicable to both working time and wage regulation, the Framed Flexibility Model provides a regulatory model suited to both care workers (Mencap) and private hire drivers (Uber). The paper argues that the Supreme Court should uphold and clarify the Court of Appeal’s decision in Uber and overturn the judgment in Mencap.
Drawing on this research paper, Professor McCann has also published two blogs titled ‘Now That We Care About Carers: Temporal Casualisation in Mencap and Uber’. A lengthier version of the piece is available in Medium, and a shorter one in the Oxford Human Rights Hub.
The Framed Flexibility Model is a framework for working time laws that is suited to the contemporary labour markets of the global North and South.
Designed by Deirdre McCann and Jill Murray, the Model responds to an urgent need: to find effective regulatory models for the precarious and informal working relations that are expanding across the advanced industrialised world and have long been characteristic of the South.
These policy briefings outline the principles and sets of standards that underpin the Framed Flexibility Model and provide a Model Law to illustrate the Model. The Law is designed for the regulation of working time in one of the key forms of informal labour: domestic work.
This Project Note on the Labour/Data Justice (LDJ) Project introduces our new research project on working conditions regulation in the context of the digital transformation of working life.
The LDJ Project is supporting a set of linked research and policy activities towards understanding and improving labour market regulation within the context of ‘digitisation.’
A first phase of the project investigates novel, globally-significant, law-centred initiatives to improve the conditions of domestic workers in Mexico. The aim is to generate findings and recommendations that can help to shape national and international legal policy on domestic work and the digitisation working life.
Click here to download the LDJ Project Note in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.
This Project Note introduces the DWR Project and all of our research activities from 2017-21.
The publication summarises the project’sactivities, events, and outputs since it was established through an ESRC/GCRF Strategic Network Grant on Legal Regulation of Unacceptable Forms of Work (UFW) (2017-18). Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) through the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF), the project established a global network that now includes more than 60 research and policy bodies in 20 countries across the world.
In 2018-19, the DWR Project launched Decent Work Regulation in Africa (DWR-Africa), which established a regional network of researchers and stakeholders in southern Africa, conducted research on challenges to labour law enforcement in the region, and generated recommendations for research and regulatory policy.
In 2019, the DWR Project launched the Labour/Data Justice Project (2019-21), which is focusing on the design and implementation of regulatory frameworks that can improve job quality in the context of the digitisation of working life. A first phase of the project will investigate novel law-centred initiatives to secure decent work for domestic workers in Mexico. The focus is on the rapid digitisation of the sector and the challenges it poses for labour/data justice.
Click here to download the DWR Project Note in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. click here.
The Framed Flexibility Model is informed by key principles: 1) the universality of labour law’s protection; 2) the unity of labour law regimes; 3) work/family reconciliation; 4) the standardisation of working time laws; 5) regulated flexibility; 6) working time capability; 7) the interaction of regulatory techniques (legislation and collective bargaining); and 8) innovative regulation in the design of legal frameworks on working time.
The Framed Flexibility Model is not a universal model to be applied without modification. Instead, it is a resource for the design of measures at a range of regulatory levels and in diverse national settings.
It is underpinned by three sets of standards: 1) Framing Standards, which provide for protected standard working hours; 2) Temporal Flexibility Standards, which provide a degree of flexibility in favour of both employers and workers; and 3) Effective Regulation Standards, which ensure that the Framing Standards and Temporal Flexibility Standards exercise a decisive influence on working life.
The Model Law on Working Time in Domestic Work (see below) provides a practical illustration of how the Framed Flexibility Standards can be applied in the regulation of working time in one of the key forms of informal labour:domestic work.
However, those sets of standards can be used to design working time standards across the labour force, with a particular focus on preventing casualised work.
The below research paper by Professor Deirdre McCann investigates the UK Court of Appeal decisions in Uber and Mencap, which are being heard by the Supreme Court in 2020. The paper explores what these cases reveal about the regulatory dimensions of temporal casualisation. It argues that they expose a fracture between, on the one hand, legal frameworks on working time and wages, and on the other hand, the sectoral and gendered treatment of working hours.
The paper highlights the pertinence of Professor McCann's Framed Flexibility Model to conceptualising and regulating working time in these cases, with a particular focus on Mencap. It advocates that the Supreme Court should uphold and clarify the Court of Appeal’s decision in Uber and overturn the judgment in Mencap.
Framed Flexibility Briefing
Model Law on Working Time in Domestic Work Briefing
Temporal Casualisation Report
Published by the project on Decent Work Regulation in Africa (DWR-Africa), this report on Developmental Enforcement focuses on the most urgent challenges to public and private enforcement of labour standards in the South African and Lesotho garment sectors.
The study was led by Shane Godfrey of the Labour and Enterprise Policy Research Group at the University of Cape Town, South Africa and co-authored by Debbie Collier, Roger Ronnie, and Abigail Osiki (Labour and Enterprise Policy Research Group, University of Cape Town), Deirdre McCann (Durham Law School, UK) and Kelly Pike (Global Labour Research Centre, York University, Canada).
The Developmental Enforcement report investigates the effectiveness of labour standards enforcement in South Africa and Lesotho in the context of contemporary challenges to labour enforcement systems and the garment sector. It explores the potential for a more coordinated approach that is informed by hybrid models of enforcement.
The report is an outcome of a novel global multi-scalar process of interdisciplinary research and stakeholder dialogue that was carried out from January 2017 to June 2019. The project involved extensive stakeholder engagement at the international, regional, and national levels.
To download the executive summary and full report, click here.
Upgrading low-waged and insecure work is crucial for worker protection and sustainable development, including to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals. For this purpose, effective labour regulation is essential. Yet the regulatory frameworks that can improve Unacceptable Forms of Work (UFW) are underdeveloped.
The Multidimensional Model of UFW has been designed for local stakeholders to identify and address UFW in local contexts.
This new Research Briefing focuses on the regulatory dimension of the Multidimensional Model. It outlines a new strategic approach to UFW regulation that supports development objectives, acknowledges the limited resources of low-income countries, and aims at extensive and sustainable effects.
To download the research briefing, click here.
An article by Professor Deirdre McCann (Durham University, UK) and Professor Judy Fudge (McMaster University, Canada) has just been published in the Journal of Law and Society.
‘A Strategic Approach to Regulating Unacceptable Forms of Work’ builds on the authors’ Multidimensional Model of UFW to propose a framework for strategic regulation of UFW. This new approach is tailored
towards sustainable development, acknowledges the constrained resources of lowâ€income countries, and aims for expansive and sustainable effects. The article also re-visits four case studies of key legal regimes that govern contrasting labour practices: mathadi labour in India, domestic work in Uruguay, zero-hours contracts in the UK, and minimum wages in the global North and South.
On the Multidimensional Model of UFW, see further ‘Unacceptable Forms of Work’ International Labour Review 2017.
A day after Alfonso Cuarón won the Best Director Oscar for Roma, Karina Patricio Ferreira Lima and Arely Cruz-Santiago published a piece on The Conversation that highlights innovations on labour rights for domestic workers in Latin America and reflects on how the film comes at a timely moment for legal reforms in Mexico.
The article, titled ‘Roma: how Alfonso Cuarón’s movie is spurring Mexico to treat domestic workers more fairly’, reflects on the main challenges for the legal regulation of domestic work worldwide. It puts Latin America at centre stage as a region that has made significant improvements in this area since the 2000s, even if Mexico is only finally catching up.
In this regard, the authors suggest that there are reasons to believe that legislative reforms may be on the way in Mexico. While these developments owe much to workers’ campaigning and political changes in the country, Roma has played an important role by highlighting the struggle of the profession.
If the promising signs in Mexico bear fruit, Cuarón’s masterpiece will have helped secure decent conditions for domestic workers in a country which has denied them for too long. Roma surely deserves its Hollywood awards, but achieving real reform will be worth a great deal more.
Karina Patricio Ferreira Lima is a doctoral researcher in Law and works as a Research Assistant on the Project on Decent Work Regulation. She is also a Modern Law Review Scholar. Arely Cruz-Santiago is an ESRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Geography and worked as a Project Manager on the DWR Project from 2017-18.
On 12 February, Dr Arely Cruz-Santiago published a guest article for the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) SDG Knowledge Hub.
The article - Global Dialogue/Local Innovation: Labor Regulation as a Pathway to Achieving the SDGs - outlines the outcomes of the ESRC GCRF Strategic Network on Unacceptable Forms of Work (UFW), with which Dr Cruz-Santiago was a Project Manager from 2017-18.
The article highlights that conditions of work and other dimensions of worker’s lives - childcare, family life, the urban environment, transport etc. - are interlinked. As a result, the UN Sustainable Development Goals must be thought of in a holistic way. Achieving decent work - SDG8 - is an objective that cross-cuts the SDGs. It is fundamental, for example, to ending poverty (SDG1), reducing inequality (SDG10) sustaining sustainable cities (SDG11) and ensuring gender equality (SDG5).
The article discusses the research agendas and project report produced by the Strategic Network. These identify 10 global challenges to effective labour regulation and argue for finding solutions by sharing experiences and ideas among countries in the global North and South.
Gender equality is at the heart of decent work, including in Sustainable Development Goal 5 – to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. In many cases, unacceptable forms of work (UFW) are present in working environments that are highly gendered.
This Research Briefing draws on our UFW Research Agendas on the global care economy and the garment sector, in which the great majority of workers are female.
The DWR Project has designed a poster to highlight our main research questions, goals, and activities from 2015 to the present.
Designed by Karina Patricio Ferreira Lima, the poster outlines the development of the Project, explains our Multidimensional Model of UFW, identifies the key Global Challenges to effective labour regulation and highlights our current research on Decent Work Regulation in Africa (2018-).
The poster was debuted at Durham University’s ESRC IAA Showcase event on 16 January 2019.
To download the document, please click here.
The Project on Decent Work Regulation in Africa (DWR-Africa) responds to UN Sustainable Development Goal 8: to promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth, employment and decent work for all. To achieve this objective, effective labour regulation is crucial. Strong labour laws are a vital component of development policies, capable of supporting inclusive growth, sustainable prosperity, and the wellbeing of workers and their families.
This project note outlines the aims of the Project, presents our Regional Network on Decent Work Regulation, reports our latest events, and highlights our current research on Decent Work Regulation in Africa (2018-).
To download the document, click here.
The Fair Work Commission was established by the Welsh Government in July to make recommendations on how to achieve fair work. The Commission has released a call for evidence for organisations and individuals to share their experiences to help ensure fair work in practice and a fairer future for all.
In response to this call, a submission has been made by Professor Deirdre McCann, Principal Investigator of the project on Decent Work Regulation.
Based on the findings of the Project’s research on Unacceptable Forms of Work (UFW), the submission advocates for recognising Fair Work employers as those who combat UFW in their workplaces, contractors, and supply chains, and for identifying indicators of fair work.
The submission is particularly concerned with ensuring that casualised forms of work are included in national- and firm-level efforts to improve the quality of working life.
To download the submission, please click here.
The Project on Decent Work Regulation in Africa (DWR-Africa) responds to UN Sustainable Development Goal 8: to promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth, employment and decent work for all. To achieve this objective, effective labour regulation is important. Strong labour laws are a vital component of development policies, capable of supporting inclusive growth, sustainable prosperity, and the wellbeing of workers and their families.
This project note focuses on the DWR-Africa in Lesotho, with a particular focus on work-life and gender dynamics and how these relate to informality in - or are associated with - the garment sector.
A submission on Decent Work Regulation has been made for the forthcoming visit to the UK of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights (5 to 16 November 2018).
The submission - by Professor Deirdre McCann of Durham Law School, Principal Investigator of the Decent Work Regulation project - highlights the intersection of poverty and labour rights and the need for effective labour regulation in the UK.
The submission highlights the growth of highly casualised jobs in the UK in recent years, which are subjecting an element of the working population to highly variable and unpredictable incomes and can be considered unacceptable forms of work.
The submission concludes that it is essential to find new solutions to protect casual workers and to avert the risk of poverty. More effective interventions would include ‘framed flexibility’ mechanisms e.g. the prohibition of casual work in vulnerable sectors/occupations; notice of schedules and overtime; incentives for continuous hours; compensation for short call-out periods; and the requirement that in-shift travel periods be counted as working time (on the ‘framed flexibility’ model, see further Deirdre McCann and Jill Murray Prompting Formalisation Through Labour Market Regulation 2014 Industrial Law Journal).
To download the submission, please click here. The full set of submissions by UK academics and civil society organisations is available here.
This report is the product of an international consultation that has involved researchers and policy-makers from 50 research and policy organisations in more than 20 countries across the world. A response to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the report calls for effective labour regulation to secure economic growth and decent work (SDG8).
Unacceptable Forms of Work: Global Dialogue/Local Innovation highlights 10 GlUnacceptable Forms of Workobal Challenges to effective labour rights. It outlines research agendas that are designed to investigate and respond to each of these Global Challenges by eliminating Unacceptable Forms of Work(UFW).
For further information about the report, please click here.
On 18 June 2018, the Network held a Regional Meeting at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business. The Meeting brought together stakeholders from countries across sub-Saharan Africa, including from government Ministries, labour inspectorates, trade unions, employers’ associations, auditors, and retailers.
The Meeting provided the opportunity for a regional dialogue on regulatory strategies that can achieve decent work in the African context. The focus was on the enforcement of labour laws in the garment sector. In particular, participants considered whether involving a range of stakeholders in enforcement - multistakeholders models - can extend the reach of labour standards.
This document outlines the Meeting’s findings and recommendations. It aims to make a useful contribution to the lively debates on effective labour standards, and on decent work in the garment sector, both in Africa and in countries across the world.
The ESRC/GCRF Strategic Network on Legal Regulation of Unacceptable Forms of Work has identifed a set of Global Challenges to effective labour regulation. These are the most urgent and complex issues that face lower-income countries in particular in upgrading or eliminating unacceptable forms of work.
Network Teams composed of researchers from a range of discplines and national and international policy actors have produced research agendas to address each Global Challenge.
To download the research agendas, please click here.
Unacceptable forms of work (UFW) have been identified as an “area of critical importance” for the ILO as it approaches its centenary. Yet there is currently no comprehensive elaboration of the dimensions, causes or manifestations of UFW.
On this article published in the International Labour Review (Vol. 156, No. 2, 2017), Professor Deirdre McCann and Professor Judy Fudge report on a research project that has proposed such a framework.
The article first investigates and reconceptualizes key discourses on contemporary work to identify their contribution to an analytically rigorous conception of UFW. It then outlines a novel Multidimensional Model that has been designed for use by local policy actors in identifying and targeting UFW in countries across a range of income levels.
To download the article, please click here.
The elimination of unacceptable forms of work (UFW) has been identified by the ILO as an area of critical importance for the future of labour regulation.
This research briefing outlines the research project led by Deirdre McCann (Durham University) and Judy Fudge (McMaster University), which has generated a Multidimensional Model for identifying and addressing UFW.
The Model is designed to be globally relevant. It can be used by local researchers and policy-makers to construct models of UFW suited to regional, national, sectoral and occupational settings.
This research study conducted by Professor Judy Fudge and Professor Deirdre McCann defines Unacceptable Forms of Work (UFW) and the various ways in which it is manifested.
It compares the concept of UFW to relevant concepts developed by academia and selected international organizations. It also proposes a model to capture the multidimensional nature of unacceptable forms of work in different socio-economic and cultural contexts, and suggests effective approaches to labour market regulation in addressing these forms of work.
Unacceptable Forms of Work: A Global and Comparative Study (English)
Unacceptable Forms of Work: A Global and Comparative Study (French)
Unacceptable Forms of Work: A Global and Comparative Study (Spanish)
Across the globe, domestic work is characterised by working hours that are both extremely long and highly unpredictable.
Domestic workers are employed by private households to provide work that includes cleaning, cooking and caring for children and other family members. They may be needed during the night or at very short notice, especially when they are care workers. Yet, traditionally, domestic workers have been excluded from labour laws, leaving them open to abuse.
This research briefing outlines the research programme on Decent Work for Domestic Workers, which has investigated how new laws can be designed to regulate working hours in domestic work. It proposes an original conceptual framework for the regulation of working time in domestic work and a Model Law that can be drawn upon by policy actors to design legislation and collective agreements.
