Labour courts in Great Britain and Sweden: a self-service model v collective regulation

The institutions for adjudicating employment rights in Great Britain and Sweden are superficially similar – in both countries there are labour courts with lay judges and both countries are covered by European Union employment legislation. Beneath this surface, however, there are important differences. In Sweden there is collective regulation as the social partners (that is trade unions and employers organisations) continue to play a significant part in the labour court process. In contrast the social partners no longer play a role in the adjudication of employment rights in Great Britain, which provides an individualistic, self-service model. This article traces these changes in Great Britain, and the lack of them in Sweden, before offering theoretical explanations for the differences

Gender and the labour market in South East England. Volume 2: employers’ policies and practices

This research on gender and the labour market in South East England was funded by the South East of England Development Agency/European Social Fund. In volume 1 we set out the context: theoretical explanations for gender equality, the legal framework and organisational factors. Moreover, using a range of published data, we answered the first of our research questions: how does the labour market position of women in the government region of the South East of England compare with that of both men in the South East and that of women in Great Britain/United Kingdom? In this volume we turn our attention to our other research questions: • What policies and practices do employers in South East England adopt in respect of gender equality? • What barriers do employers and women employees in South East England identify in respect of gender and employment

Visualizing the news: mutant barcodes and geographies of conflict

This paper outlines emerging research concerned with visualizing online news archives. The authors make a distinction between the use of visualization for data journalism and the evolution of reporting on current affairs over extended periods of time

Originary translation in Cormac McCarthy’s the Road

Although it might not be immediately evident, Cormac McCarthy’s 2006 novel, The Road, is a work of translation. By this I am not suggesting that there is a hitherto unacknowledged original version of the book in another language. Rather, I would like to reclaim the primary sense of translation and offer it as a description of The Road as a work of “transference; removal or conveyance from one person, place, or condition to another” (“Translation,” def. I.1.a)—a definition of translation now so peculiarly remote as to appear almost catachrestic.peer-reviewe

Making nothing happen : Yeats, Heidegger, Pessoa, and the emergence of Post-Romanticism

Through close readings of the work of two major poets of the twentieth century—W.B. Yeats and Fernando Pessoa—this paper identifies and attempts to make sense of an important shift in European modernism away from a broadly Romantic aesthetic toward what might be called “post-Romanticism.” Taking its cue from W.H. Auden’s “In Memory of W.B. Yeats,” where having stated that “poetry makes nothing happen” he asserts that it survives as “a way of happening,” and drawing on the philosophy of Heidegger and Jean-Luc Nancy, this paper argues that this shift from Romanticism to post-Romanticism hinges on a deep metaphysical reconceptualization of poetry understood as poiesis. In light of this reassessment of the aesthetics and philosophical affinities of poetic modernism, it is argued that post-Romanticism should be understood as offering a modest, salutary, phenomenological re-acquaintance with our involvement with the everyday world, in sharp contrast to the transcendental ambitions of the Romantic aesthetic that preceded it.peer-reviewe

What's really involved in Acas Collective arbitration?

This case study looks at the experience of a manufacturing company that used Acas arbitration. It considers all aspects of the process and puts forward views from all those involved

British employment tribunals: from the side-lines to centre stage

Employment tribunals, originally called industrial tribunals, were established 50 years ago in Great Britain and this article traces their gradual change. Originally constituted as administrative tribunals in 1964, they morphed to party versus party forums from the 1970s, but this change did not stop there. Over the succeeding years, employment tribunals moved from a marginal role to a central role in British employment relations, as their caseload has risen, their remit has widened, and as legal regulation has replaced collective regulation. Moreover in so doing, employment tribunals have become less accessible to workers, less speedy and more expensive. They have also become more formal, with legal norms and practices and adjudication by lawyers alone replacing industrial relations norms and adjudication by a mix of lawyers and lay people. As a result, employment tribunals have become juridified. The article concludes by critiquing the basis of employment tribunals which is the self-help/complainant after the event approach, as opposed to state enforcement of statutory employment rights