The Professorial Inaugural Lecture Series: Professor Ralph Darlington November 9, 2010

The fourth lecture in the Professorial Inaugural lecture series will be delivered by Professor Ralph Darlington, Professor of Employment Relations in Salford Business School.

Professor Darlington has written extensively on trade union organisation and activity in both historical and contemporary contexts and is the author of The Dynamics of Workplace Unionism (1994), The Political Trajectory of J.T. Murphy (1998), Glorious Summer: Class Struggle in Britain, 1972 [with Dave Lyddon] (2001), and Syndicalism and the Transition to Communism: An International Comparative Analysis (2008). He also edited What's the Point of Industrial Relations? In Defence of Critical Social Science (2009).

Ralph is a national executive member of the main professional body in his field, the British Universities Industrial Relations Association, and Secretary of the 46-year old Manchester Industrial Relations Society which brings together IR/HRM academics and students with over 160 human resource managers, trade union officers, labour lawyers, and ACAS and Equality and Human Rights Commission officials from across the north-west in a joint forum for discussion and debate.

Professor Darlington's lecture, entitled Why the Study of Industrial Relations Matters, will explore the following:

According to some commentators broad changes in the economy, society and employment over the last 25-30 years - leading to the decline in trade union membership, collective bargaining and strikes, and the increasing central role of management in working life - have marginalised the traditional academic industrial relations analysis of the joint regulation of employment. As a result the problems of the 'human factor' in work are better addressed by new approaches such as Human Resource Management.

In this professorial inaugural lecture Ralph Darlington will dispute such claims and present the intellectual, moral and also policy arguments for why the academic study of industrial relations continues to have an important contribution to make to a systematic and questioning understanding of the nature of the employment relationship within society. Against the backcloth of recent disputes at British Airways, Network Rail, the London Underground and elsewhere, and with the potential for an 'autumn of protest' in response to the coalition government's 'Age of Austerity' public spending cuts, Ralph will draw on 25 years of teaching and research on industrial relations and trade unionism, within both contemporary/historical and national/international contexts, to:

* Outline some of the central features of the scholarly analysis of industrial relations which mark it out as distinctive from HRM, including its focus on the regulation, control and governance of work and the employment relationship, whether this be in non-union or unionised workplaces; its multi-disciplinary, multi-level perspective; and its recognition of the unequal power at the centre of the employment relationship between parties that have contrasting and at times conflictual priorities and interests
* Examine the reasons why IR research and teaching continue to be as relevant as ever to practitioner and public policy makers (with the study of the employment relationship and of people's experience of work connecting to a wide range of social, economic and political outcomes), as well as students (with the field of industrial relations encouraging critical independent thinking, assessment of evidence, questioning of established wisdom, assessment of the importance of institutional and broader contexts and of how power resources are mobilised and reproduced, and the grappling with the difficulties involved in managing people and securing their engagement)
* Illustrate the distinctive contribution, value and practical relevance of industrial relations by considering some specific aspects of Ralph's body of work concerned with the dynamics of trade unionism; the conditions, issues and causes that give rise to conflict; and the role of leadership and politics within the process of collective mobilisation

This lecture will be held on Tuesday 9 November 2010 in the Council Chamber, The Old Fire Station, The Crescent commencing at 17:30 and is open to staff, students, alumni and supporters of the University.

We recommend that you pre-register to reserve your place by completing the process here no later than Friday 5 November as tickets are limited. On completion of the registration process your e-ticket will be sent to the email you have provided. Please bring your e-ticket to the event.

Official Website: http://www.salford.ac.uk/events/details/1351