The Regulation and Management of Workplace Health and Safety: Historical and Emerging Trends

The book provides a collection of cutting-edge, multi-disciplinary research-based chapters on work, workers and the regulation and management of workplace health and safety. Featuring research from Australia, Europe and North America, the chapters traverse important historical examples and place important, emerging contemporary trends, like work in the gig economy, into wider international and historical perspectives. The authors are leading authorities in their fields.

The book contributes to advancing our knowledge – empirical and theoretical – of the ways in which labour market dynamics, management strategies, state regulation and public policy, and union organisation affect outcomes for workers. It features in-depth exploration of, and reflection on, some of the major labour market challenges facing workers, and analysis of strengths and weaknesses of responses to those challenges, whether via management, state regulation or collective employee voice. The chapters highlight shifts in in/equality of outcomes; access to security and flexibility at work; genuine access to workplace voice and decision-making; and the implications of different avenues and mechanisms for regulating work and employment.

The text is aimed at researchers, undergraduate and postgraduate students in work and organisational studies, industrial/employment relations and human resource management, workplace (or occupational) health and safety, employment law, and labour history. It will also be of particular interest to policy makers and practitioners working in the field of workplace health and safety.

Peter Sheldon is a Professor in the School of Management at the UNSW Business School, Australia, Director of its Industrial Relations Research Centre, and an Executive Editor of its Economic and Industrial Relations Review.

Sarah Gregson is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Management at the UNSW Business School, Australia and Deputy Editor of Labour History.

Russell Lansbury is Emeritus Professor of Work and Organisational Studies at the University of Sydney Business School, Australia.

Karin Sanders is a Professor of Human Resources Management and Organisational Behaviour in the School of Management at the UNSW Business School, Australia.