Managing labour: UK and Australian employers in comparative perspective, 1900-50

The exceptionalism of Australian industrial relations has long been asserted. In particular, the Australian system of industrial arbitration has been argued to contrast markedly with other countries, such as Britain, which developed a more 'voluntarist' model of industrial regulation. However this distinction relies upon limited historical research of workplace-level developments. In this paper, we focus on a comparative analysis of employer practice in British and Australian workplaces during the first half of the twentieth century. While we find some differences in the nature and extent of management control between the British and Australian experience, what is more striking are the strong similarities in employer practice in work organisation, employment and industrial relations. While economic and institutional factors explain differences in employer practice, fundamental similarities appear to relate to the close economic and social linkages between British and Australian business

Professional decision making and women offenders : containing the chaos?

This article draws on the findings from research undertaken in south-east Scotland in 2008 which sought to identify the characteristics of female offenders and to document the views of policy makers and practitioners regarding the experiences of women involved in the Scottish criminal justice system. Despite Scotland having retained a stronger 'welfare' focus than elsewhere in the UK (e.g. McAra, 2008), this is not reflected in the treatment of women who offend, with the rate of female imprisonment having almost doubled in the last ten years and community based disposals falling short of a welfare-oriented system. This article explores why the treatment that women offenders receive in the criminal justice system may be harsh and disproportionate both in relation to their offending and in relation to the treatment of men. It is argued that interventions with women need to be initiated earlier in their cycle of offending and at an earlier stage in the criminal justice process but also that the wide-ranging health, welfare, financial and behavioural needs of women who offend cannot be met solely within an increasingly risk-averse and punitive criminal justice environment

International Evidence Review of Conditional (Suspended) Sentences: Final Report

This report reviews international use of conditional sentences, specifically understood to mean a criminal sentence of imprisonment which is suspended pending a person's satisfaction of specific criteria. These sentences are being considered in jurisdictions seeking ways of managing prison population growth. The laws and any information about use of such sentences among selected countries is considered in the first part. The second part reviews research on perceptions of such sentences, and community-based sentences generally. This research was requested by and submitted to the Scottish Government

Was health and safety a strike issue? Workers, unions and the body in twentieth-century Scotland

In February 1949, 5,000 or so asbestos miners downed tools and went on strike in a dispute which centred on excessively dusty working conditions which were considered inimical to the health of those breathing this toxic mineral into their lungs. This occurred in the mining town called Asbestos in Quebec, Canada, where Irish migrants were amongst the strike’s participants. The Catholic Church was drawn into the conflict, with the nearby Archbishop of Montreal supporting the strikers and organising fund-raising which quickly accumulated over $500,000. After a long, bitter and violent five-month struggle the strike was defeated and the men returned to working in the dust. Two decades or so later, in the 1970s, the legacy was evident in uncontroversial medical evidence of spikes in asbestos-related disease deaths amongst Canadian asbestos miners. This episode is revealing because it appears to be such a rare occurrence: a workers’ strike explicitly over occupational health where a substantial number of employees were responding directly to the threat towards their bodies of the labour process, the work environment and the materials on which they worked

The rise of litigious religion: courts and the generation of religious publicity

Religiously-motivated litigation – or “religitigation” – is on the rise in the UK. These cases, many of which pit religious freedom against sexual equality, often captivate the public imagination, highlighting the uneasy truce between law and religion in a country which maintains an established Church but is wary of those looking to ‘do God’ in public. Here Méadhbh McIvor argues that winning in court is not the most important consideration to these Christian activists. Rather, it is the opportunity courts give to broadcast their Christian faith that is central. Religious litigation then is not just an example of public religion but also a means of garnering religious publicity

Le travail en Grande-Bretagne : une étude historiographique

This brief essay aims to survey and critically reflect on some of the key landmarks in the historiography of work in Britain over the past fifty years or so

The Use and Abuse of the Doctrine of Vicarious Liability

Through an analysis of recent case law, this article seeks to highlight the flaws in the current English law approach to the doctrine of vicarious liability. Focusing on the new ‘close connection’ test for determining the ‘course of employment’ requirement, it argues that the recent expansion of employer’s no-fault liability for the acts of employees has been founded upon a set of principles that are not only theoretically unsound, but also unjustifiable by reference to the normative background of the doctrine of vicarious liability. The article further argues that the judicial reasoning used in these cases indicates fundamental confusion about the nature of the distinction between direct and vicarious liability, and a particular lack of understanding about the concept of the non-delegable duty

Miners, silica and disability : the bi-national interplay between South Africa and the United Kingdom, c1900-1930s

This paper investigates silicosis as a disabling disease in underground mining in the United Kingdom (UK) before Second World War, exploring the important connections between South Africa and the UK and examining some of the issues raised at the 1930 International Labour Office Conference on silicosis in Johannesburg in a British context. The evidence suggests there were significant paradoxes and much contestation in medical knowledge creation, advocacy, and policy-making relating to this occupational disease. It is argued here that whilst there was an international exchange of scientific knowledge on silicosis in the early decades of the twentieth century, it was insufficient to challenge the traditional defense adopted by the British government of proven beyond all scientific doubt before effective intervention in coal mining. This circumspect approach reflected dominant business interests and despite relatively robust trade union campaigning and eventual reform, the outcomewas an accumulative legacy of respiratory disease and disability that blighted coalfield communitie

Heard Island and McDonald Islands

The sub-Antarctic Heard Island and McDonald Islands (HIMI) group is an Australian external territory located in the Indian Ocean sector of the Southern Ocean. The island group was inscribed on the World Heritage list in 1997 for its outstanding natural universal values, primarily due to the relative absence of human influence on the natural environment. The Territory also forms part of a 65 000 km2 Marine Reserve, declared under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 in 2002 to protect the conservation values of the islands and the surrounding unique and vulnerable marine ecosystems. The Territory and Marine Reserve are managed by the Australian Antarctic Division of the Department of Environment and Water Resources, in accordance with the Heard Island and McDonald Islands Marine Reserve Management Plan 2005, which aims to address a range of potential human pressures, most notably the risk of introduced species