The unorganised worker: problems at work, routes to support and views on representation. The unrepresented worker survey 2004. Working Paper 11. Who experiences problems at work, what problems do they experience, what do they do about them and what happen

This is the eleventh working paper from a project that explored the experience of problems at work and sources of support and advice of non-unionised workers in Britain. It explored ‘concerns’ at work – what these were, how they were perceived, whether any action was taken or not - and wider issues of individual employment rights and their enforcement. Non-unionised workers’ use of union help-lines, statutory bodies such as Acas and the Employment Tribunal system, various support and advice agencies, such as Citizens Advice Bureau and law centres, and wider social networks were examined. The research involved both a telephone survey of 500 workers and qualitative interviews of a smaller number accessed through the survey respondents, the Citizens Advice Bureaux and other informal channels. Wider attitudes towards individual and collective representation and broader social engagement were also explored

What is the relationship between long working hours, over-employment, under-employment and the subjective well-being of workers. Longitudinal evidence from the UK.

Are long working hours, over-employment and under-employment associated with a reduction in subjective well-being (SWB)? If they are, is the association long or short-lasting? This paper answers these questions through within-person analysis of a nationally representative longitudinal survey from the United Kingdom. The results suggest that long working hours of work do not directly affect SWB, but in line with theories of person-environment fit, both over-employment and under-employment are associated with lower SWB. However, over-employment is more likely for those who work the longest hours. The duration of the SWB penalty associated with over-employment and under-employment is typically short, but SWB levels tend to remain depressed for those who remain over-employed for two years or more. Results suggest that state and organisational policies that reduce the incidence of long hours working may enhance aggregate well-being levels

Do cultural differences explain differences in attitudes towards unions? Culture and attitudes towards unions among call centre workers in Britain and India

This article adds to the literature on worker attitudes towards unions by investigating the impact of cultural attitudes and the call centre labour process on union attitudes among call centre workers in Britain and India. It is hypothesised that workers with egalitarian and collectivist cultural attitudes will be more likely to have pro-union attitudes than other workers, although if the impact of cultural attitudes is mediated by history and institutions, it might be expected that this relationship is stronger for British than Indian workers. Conversely, if union attitudes are largely a function of the call centre labour process, we would expect union attitudes to be similar among workers in both countries. Our results only partially support our hypotheses. Collectivist attitudes are only weakly related to union attitudes among the British sample but are more strongly related in the Indian sample. There are significant differences between union attitudes among our British and Indian samples. The article concludes that relationship between cultural attitudes and union attitudes are heavily dependent on institutional context. Cultural attitudes are unlikely to be either a constraint or a facilitator of union efforts to organise workers

Why HR is set to fail the big data challenge

Few organisations have made much progress in developing HR analytics capabilities, write Andy Charlwood, Mark Stuart, Ian Kirkpatrick and Mark T Lawrenc

The relevance of the human resource management (HRM) to lean in the service sector: evidence from three exploratory case studies

The aim of this research is to explore the relevance of the Human Resource Management (HRM) to lean in the service sector. In particular, the focus is to further understand the HRM bundle which is one of the four main bundles of lean: Just-In-Time (JIT), Total Quality Management (TQM), Total Preventive Maintenance (TPM), and Human Resource Management (HRM) (Pont, Furlan, and Vinelli, 2008; Shah and Ward, 2003). In this context, a bundle (whether a lean or a HRM bundle) means a set of interrelated and internally consistent practices (Pont, Furlan, and Vinelli, 2008). The study uses case study research because it allows a rich coverage of the area of investigation (Yin, 2009) via the utilisation of multiple sources of evidence (Gillham, 2000). Case study research studies a phenomenon in its real context and has the ability of reporting and documenting events in their practical nature (Yin, 2011). Its researchers’ understanding that lean influences certain HRM practices (HRM bundle); however, the degree and nature of the influence is yet to be further explored

Do economic conditions influence union activism behaviour?

This article develops and tests the theory that union activism is related to economic conditions using a nationally representative panel of workers from the UK. Results suggest that a fall in real wages of two percentage points and a three percentage point increase in the unemployment rate are both associated with a one tenth increase in the probability that a ‘benchmark’ worker will become a union activist (albeit from a low base). This relationship is largely explained by the behaviour of workers in highly unionised sectors

Long working hours and physical activity

Background. It is widely believed that persons employed in jobs demanding long working hours are at greater risk of physical inactivity than other workers, primarily because they have less leisure time available to undertake such activity. The aim of this study was to test this hypothesis using prospective data obtained from a nationally representative sample of employed persons. Methods. Longitudinal data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey (93367 observations from 17893 individuals) were used to estimate conditional fixed effects logistic regression models of the likelihood of moderate or vigorous physical exercise for at least 30 minutes at least 4 times are week. Results. No significant associations between long working hours and the incidence of healthy levels of physical activity were uncovered once other exogenous influences on activity levels were controlled for. The odds of men or women who usually work 60 or more hours per week exercising at healthy levels were 6% and 11% less, respectively, than those of comparable persons working a more standard 35 to 40 hour week, but neither estimate was significantly different from zero at the 95% confidence level. Conclusions. The findings suggest that there is no trade-off between long working hours and physical activity in Australia. It is argued that these findings are broadly consistent with previous research studies from Anglo-Saxon countries (where long work hours are pervasive) that employed large nationally representative samples

Working time and cigarette smoking: evidence from Australia and the United Kingdom

Cigarette smoking is a risk factor in a range of serious diseases, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, stroke and type II diabetes. Theory suggests that working long hours will increase smoking propensities among workers. Consequently there is a significant body of evidence on the relationship between working time and smoking. Results, however, are inconsistent and therefore inconclusive. This paper provides new evidence on how working time affects smoking behaviour using nationally representative panel data from Australia (from 2002 to 2011) and the United Kingdom (from 1992 to 2011). We exploit the panel design of the surveys to look at within-person changes in smoking behaviour over time as working time changes. In contrast to most previous studies, this means we control for time invariant aspects of personality and genetic inheritance that may affect both smoking propensities and choice of working hours. We find that working long hours tends to increase the chances that former smokers will relapse, reduce the chances that smokers will quit and increase cigarette consumption among regular smokers, and that these effects tend to become more pronounced for workers who usually work very long hours (50 or more hours a week) compared to those who work moderately long hours (40-49 hours a week)

Gender and ethnic intersectionality in solicitors’ careers, 1970 to 2016

This article provides new insights into the intersection of gender and ethnic inequalities in the solicitors’ profession. Using administrative records spanning the entire population of practising solicitors in England and Wales we analyse structural changes over successive cohorts of solicitors and identify four distinctive employment profiles: high street solicitors, city solicitors, corporate fast track and in-house. We show how solicitors with single or multiple characteristics associated with disadvantage are located in different employment profiles and how this changes over time. Demonstrating originality and the value of an intersectional analysis, we find that while ethnic stratification within solicitor careers decreases, stratification by gender remains constant. We find that in a period of rapid expansion, minority ethnic men become much better integrated into the most prestigious career profile in the profession – the corporate fast track – compared to white women who are both earlier entrants to and numerically dominant in the profession

Clear, rigorous and relevant: publishing quantitative research articles in work, employment and society

According to the recent benchmarking review of the discipline, UK sociological research is predominantly based around qualitative research methods (BSA/HaPS/ESRC 2010: 23). Further, evidence suggests that the overwhelming majority of empirical articles published in mainstream UK sociology journals are qualitative in their focus (Payne 2007: 903). In this context, WES has always been something of an outlier within UK sociology in that a relatively high proportion of articles published in the journal employ quantitative analysis (Rainbird and Rose 2007: 212; Stuart et al 2013:382). However, one consequence of the relative neglect of quantitative methods within UK sociology is that there is a lack of shared understanding about what constitutes appropriate ways of framing and presenting quantitative sociological analysis. This lack of shared understanding can then create problems for researchers seeking to publish articles based on quantitative research, because in contrast to social science disciplines where quantitative analysis is the norm, there is no clear, well established template or set of expectations for quantitative sociological research articles