Exploring the Potential for Civil Society Actors to Shake Up Organizational Responses to Workplace Protections

This project uses contemporary examples of civil society actors influencing organizational responses to equality law to explore the potential this has for enhancing respect for these obligations.

Project lead

Professor Lizzie Barmes, School of Law

Project details

This research will support the writing of a paper to be presented in late June 2024. Professor Barmes has proposed a panel on ‘Minding the gaps between workplace laws, practice, compliance and enforcement’, to which her contribution will be a paper analysing several recent UK case studies, that resonate with experience elsewhere, in order to explore the potential for civil society actors to influence how organizations respond to equality protections. It will draw on empirical and theoretical research into ‘civil regulation’ to analyse, first, the #MeToo movement’s influence on approaches to settlement of equality claims, secondly, NGO involvement in measures to promote inclusion in the legal profession and, thirdly, the impact of civil society in organizational efforts to promote social mobility. The underlying question is how far such interactions offer hope for deepening organizational respect for equality law, including in the vast areas of the labour market in which trade union influence is absent or diminished. This paper builds on Professor Barmes' past and current work on various topics, especially current work on NDAs in settlement agreements, the use of affirmative/positive action in the legal profession of England and Wales, and the law on socio-economic inequality.

Project work and outcomes

Your work will comprise:

• Locating and creating a bibliography of relevant scholarship and grey literature about what some scholars call ‘civil regulation’, by which is meant, broadly speaking, the work of civil society to influence employers and others to raise standards in relation to social, environmental and other concerns.
• Locating and creating a bibliography of relevant scholarship and grey literature about the experience in practice of implementation of:
  • The Equality Act 2010, section 1 socio-economic duty in Scotland and Wales;
  • The Equality Act 2010, section 149 public sector equality duty.
• So far as there is time remaining, to start work on a literature review of 1. and 2., by summarizing and evaluating the key works located, which the student and I will identify in discussion at our progress review meetings.

Student skills and knowledge required

• Information literacy and research skills, sufficient to locate scholarly and wider sources, across multiple disciplines, on ‘civil regulation’ and experience in practice with the equality duties under the Equality Act 2010 – or at least sufficient grounding in such skills to be able quite quickly to ‘skill up’, with appropriate guidance from me and by consulting academic skills/library resources.
• Familiarity with legal sources sufficient to comprehend the Equality Act 2010 dimension of the project, either from the start or quite quickly with guidance from me.
• Writing, comprehension and reasoning skills sufficient to be able accurately and insightfully to précis and analyse the key sources located.

Start date and work pattern

Professor Barmes will be available to meet with you once you are ready after 6 January 2025, in order to explain the work and answer any questions you have. She will also then agree a pattern of work that fits around the student’s university obligations. She will be flexible but encourage spreading the hours throughout the period from when we meet until 18 April 2025 suggesting a work pattern of roughly 6 hours a week for 12 weeks, allowing for some periods in which the student will be on holiday and/or working intensively on university assignments.

After the initial meeting, Professor Barmes will be available to the student ad hoc if they have questions, and will also schedule meetings at 3 weekly intervals, expecting to meet 4 times after the initial meeting to review progress and decide next steps.

How to apply

To apply, please send a completed Research Bursary Project application form [DOC 71KB] to Cath Norman, Research Manager: dolresearch@qmul.ac.uk by 11pm, 8 December 2024, using the subject line ‘HSS Bursary – Your Full Name' and indicate in the body of the email the project title you wish to apply for.

Each School will make its own arrangements for selecting student applicants; these may include interviews if considered appropriate.

We anticipate that funding will be disbursed in two instalments, both subject to confirmation by the academic project lead that the student has been working appropriately. (Project leads may wish to take this into account in scheduling their monitoring meetings.) 

This bursary is fixed at £1000 for a time commitment of no more than 76 hours which is completed flexibly over 15 weeks. The first instalment (40% of the award) will be paid at the end of February 2025; the second (60% of the award) will be paid upon overall completion.