Covid-19, Labour Law, and the Renewal of the Social State (original) (raw)

Hesamag n° 24 (2021) with a special report Workplace in a pandemic

Hesamag, 2021

In this report, our main aim has been to illustrate and document the impact of Covid-19 on workers and the experience of the pandemic as an occupational health and safety issue around Europe. As a starting point, Berta Chulvi takes us to the working-class district of El Besòs i el Maresme in Barcelona, where we find, strangely, that infection stops short at the more high-class Avenida Diagonal, as if social class was a literal barrier to it. Bethany Staunton takes a look at how undocumented migrants have experienced the pandemic and asks whether the health crisis has been an instigator for real policy change on the issue of regularisation. Meanwhile, Hugo Boursier went to meet Parisian refuse collectors, applauded in the spring of 2020 for their frontline work in the public health emergency, but who now complain of a lack of recognition and low wages. And in her piece on “long Covid” (the long-term effects of the virus) in the Netherlands, Pien Heuts affirms: “Covid-19 is a lottery: some people suffer few ill effects, while others fall seriously ill and may never recover.” In the light of the rise of teleworking, and the associated risks of mental distress, Fabienne Scandella deconstructs for us the dark side of the word “resilience”, which is coming back into fashion in some circles. It would also be impossible to talk about the risks of Covid without mentioning the funeral business. Curiously, in Romania, the higher the mortality rate surges, the less work there is for funeral directors; Laura-Maria Ilie and Florentin Cassonnet explain the reasons behind this paradox. In Zagreb, Jelena Prtorić reviews a crisis at the Croatian National Theatre, which revealed serious shortcomings in occupational safety for the theatre’s opera cast. Lastly, Fanny Malinen offers us a glimpse into post-Covid-19 management in Finland, a country heralded as a pandemic success story, bringing to light a climate of ongoing stress among health professionals who are considering a change of career.

Reimagining state responsibility for workers following COVID-19: A vulnerability approach

International Journal of Discrimination and the Law

In this article it is argued that the COVID-19 crisis offers an important opportunity for engagement and reflection on the operation and effectiveness of laws regarding the workplace in the UK and beyond. The crisis underscores the temporality and partiality of labour law measures, and the need for a reimagining of that law based on more sustainable principles. I argue that this reimagination should coalesce around a human-centric approach to law, and the recognition of the need for deep and varied institutional support for workers. It is argued that these principles have been adopted historically in the context of health and safety law, but have not always been well applied, particularly in the context of the pandemic. In any event, the adoption of these principles and the greater integration of health and safety and labour law would encourage states to better promote worker agency and resilience and hence move towards meeting the aspirations of vulnerability theory.

Covid-19 And The Uk Labour Market

Oxford Review of Economic Policy

This article considers policy responses to the COVID-19 crisis as they affect the labour market, how these policies are evolving and some of the design issues they face. The concentration is on the UK, but other countries are also discussed for comparative purposes. The Job Retention Scheme is a successful innovation to keep temporarily stopped workers attached to their employers. However, since economic recovery will be slow, it is not sustainable in its current form. A sustained rise in unemployment is inevitable and alternative policies to mitigate this and the dangers of scarring are discussed. The structure of output will change, as therefore will the composition of jobs. A comprehensive active manpower policy will be needed to efficiently match job seekers to available jobs. The young are likely to suffer disproportionately from the recession and this makes it essential to introduce radical policies to boost work-based training and to enhance the contribution made by further a...

COVID-19 and Labour Law: United Kingdom

2020

The UK Government provided a tardy response to the coronavirus pandemic, which would seem to have led to widespread community transmission and a high death toll.The measures taken in relation to the labour market were disappointing, being predominantly concerned with protecting business, while limited assistance was provided to the most vulnerable, precarious workers. Jobs have been preserved by such measures, but it is unclear what will happen as the Government schemes are phased out. Crucial issues relating to health and safety at work have been downplayed during the crisis, racial concerns have emerged and gender-related inequalities are being given little attention by the Government. The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has engaged with the Government on policy matters, resulting in some significant alterations to measures taken. Unions have also been prominent in discussions regarding the terms of return to work. This report was originally submitted on 10 April and has now been upda...

From ‘herd immunity’ to ‘stay home’ to ‘stay alert’: United Kingdom’s response to COVID-19

Zdrowie Publiczne i Zarządzanie

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in various public health responses around the globe. Due to the devolved powers of the United Kingdom, the response has been centralized but simultaneously greatly differing across England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. The following article examines the governmental responses to the outbreak, the public health measures taken, data collection and statistics, protective equipment and bed capacity, the society’s response, and lastly, the easing of the lockdown restrictions. In terms of the governmental response, the COVID-19 pandemic was initially met with less urgenon/populacy and social distancing, along with the development of herd immunity, were first mentioned. As the virus continued to spread, the government started imposing stricter measures and a lockdown was implemented. Tests were conducted using a five pillar typology. The collection of information, particularly on COVID-19 associated deaths, varied across the Unit...

In Triplicate: Britain after Brexit; the World after Coronavirus; Retrospect and Prospect

Telos, 2020

The Double Pause of Now Out of the national frying pan, into the global fire. It is already impossible to consider the topic of the future of the United Kingdom after Brexit without taking into account the way in which the Brexit crisis has immediately been overtaken by a worldwide medical catastrophe. The ironies of fate at work here are of course immense, but they are also multiple. In effect Britain's exit from the European Union in practical, not formal, terms has been indefinitely suspended. Meanwhile, the primary task of coping with COVID-19 within Continental Europe falls to national governments; the EU is either irrelevant or has proved inadequate, with its financial role and the timing of its application already disputed between the Teutonic north and the Latin south. Nevertheless, some inter-Continental cooperation in terms of health resources is proving crucial. These ironic contrasts open upon a wider paradox that tends to confirm unambiguously neither the biases of "populists" nor the biases of individualistic globalizers. We are forced into protective isolation: as individuals, as families, as immediate localities, as nations. Yet at the same time we are also compelled to rely much more immediately upon connectivity in every sense-between people, between households, between businesses, between the private and the public sector, and between nations. So on the one hand this is a conservative and a communitarian moment. Friendship is proving after all a more immediate exigency of economic survival than trucking and trading, in defiance of Adam Smith. The so-recently despised family is proving to be all that most of us are

Work, a blind spot in the Covid 19 crisis (Hesamag 22, November 2020)

Hesamag, 2020

Work has been a paradoxical issue throughout the Covid-19 crisis. It is one of the main channels of transmission, so it has played a huge role in the aggravation of social inequalities during the pandemic. Yet it has been a blind spot in government strategy. This may be one of the factors that contributed to the eventual failure of lockdowns in most European countries.