President of the British Universities Industrial Relations Association Professor Peter Turnbull, University of Bristol, presented the 2023 Foenander Public Lecture at the University of Melbourne, on Tuesday, October 24, 2023.
Big Vision, Small Target? Industrial Relations Policymaking in the Age of Neoliberalism
When the problem of labour in the United Kingdom came to a head in the 1960s after dysfunctional bargaining, (unofficial) strikes and wage drift, the government appointed a Royal Commission. The subsequent 1968 Donovan Report drew heavily on academic industrial relations (IR) research to develop an evidence base for policy reform. Fast forward to the current era of neoliberal capitalism and the many problems for labour, such as low pay and the working poor, insecurity and precarity, have become too hard to ignore, even for successive Conservative administrations.
The UK government has turned to the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) to determine what constitutes "good work" in the 21st century. But, as no original research was carried out by the RSA, does this indicate evidence-based IR policymaking is dead? It seems all too easy today to dismiss any policy ideas that favour the state rather than the market, workers’ rights rather than deregulation, and the collective rather than the individual. To be sure, neoliberalism demands an active state – neoliberalism is not laissez-faire – but across many different countries with very different IR institutions, the direction of travel is towards liberalisation and legitimisation of a new ‘market order’.
Neoliberalism is now embedded in IR institutions across the English-speaking world, constraining the range of solutions perceived as useful for solving the problems for labour if not closing off alternatives altogether. If we accept that neoliberalism cannot resolve contemporary problems for labour, and indeed is exacerbating those problems through permissive policies towards platforms, the gig economy, workers’ contractual status, and the like, we need to speak of change and bring evidence to bear for an alternative ‘big vision’ with ‘smaller targets’ for detractors to take aim. This year’s Foenander Lecture provides an opportunity to share our expert knowledge on industrial relations policymaking for an alternative to neoliberalism.
About the speaker
Peter Turnbull is a professor of Management and Industrial Relations at the Business School, University of Bristol, and President of the British Universities Industrial Relations Association (BUIRA). He previously worked at the Universities of Cardiff, Leeds and Warwick (Industrial Relations Research Unit), and the LSE (Centre for Labour Economics). He has held visiting positions at Queens University (Belfast), Cornell (USA), Melbourne, La Trobe, RMIT, and the International Labour Organization (Geneva). He works with national and international organisations to promote social dialogue and is currently facilitating negotiations at the UK’s National Air Traffic Services. Professor Turnbull was invited to present policy options to curtail bogus self-employment in aviation and crews of convenience in shipping at a recent meeting of the European Council of Transport Ministers.
About the lecture series
Commencing in 1986, the Foenander Lecture was established in memory of Orwell D. Foenander, a former academic at the University, who was one of the leading figures in industrial relations scholarship in the early 20th century. Each year, we invite a distinguished figure from government, business, the union movement, or academia to present a lecture on contemporary issues in industrial relations and human resource management.