Labour Market Regulation Webinar Series
The Webinar Series enables participants in South African labour market debates to deepen their knowledge on contemporary debates from around the world on regulatory responses to the changing nature of work and the persistence of inequality and insecurity in the world of work.
The Series is facilitated by Prof Paul Benjamin, Extraordinary Professor of Law, University of the Western Cape and Director, Cheadle Thompson and Haysom Inc.
E6. A Tribute to Myrtle Witbooi – Giving Effect to Labour Rights for Domestic Workers
Speaker: Adelle Blackett – Prof. of Law at McGill University, Canada Research Chair in Transnational Labour Law and Development, Centrow Associate. Prof. Blackett served as the lead International Labour Organization (ILO) expert in a treaty-making process for Convention 189 on decent work for domestic workers, and preparing a draft Haitian labour code. Respondent: Kelebogile Khounou – Researcher: Socio-Economic Rights Institute (SERI). Ms Khounou’s Masters research was based on domestic workers’ engagement with everyday life, their social networks and the building of their political subjectivities. Ms Khounou has worked intensely on the campaign for inclusion of domestic workers under COIDA.
E5. How can bargaining rights be extended to non-employees? The European experience
Speaker: Prof Edoardo Ales, Professor of Labour Law and Industrial Relations, University of Naples and Extraordinary Professor, UWC ‘ILO standards and the right to collective bargaining for self-employed workers in the EU: lessons for South Africa?’ Respondent: Mario Jacobs, Researcher and Programme Convenor Labour, Development and Governance Research Unit (LDG), University of Cape Town and former trade union official with more than 20 years’ experience
E4. TUMSA Trade Union for Musicians of South Africa
Founded 17 May 2018, TUMSA – Trade Union for Musicians of South Africa – established its National Head Office in Cape Town, South Africa. TUMSA regards itself as an authentic and representative Trade Union. TUMSA members are employees and self-employed workers who are dependent on music for their primary source of income. Gabi Le Roux is the General Secretary for TUMSA.
E3. Miriam Cherry 'California's "Gig Battles": Technology and trends in the US labour market'
Prof Miriam Cherry has been on the faculty or visited at a number of law schools, including the University of Georgia, University of the Pacific – McGeorge School of Law, and Cumberland School of Law. In 2008, she was elected a member of the American Law Institute. Currently she is Co-Director of the William C. Wefel Center for Employment Law and Associate Dean for Research and Engagement at St Louis University School of Law. Her research is interdisciplinary, focusing on the intersection of technology and globalisation with business, contract, and employment law topics. In her recent work, she analyses crowdfunding, markets for corporate social responsibility, virtual work, and social entrepreneurship. Her publications have appeared in the North western Law Review, Minnesota Law Review, Washington Law Review, Illinois Law Review, Georgia Law Review, Alabama Law Review, Maryland Law Review, and the Tulane Law Review, among others.
E2. Nicola Countouris 'Current debates on the definition of work & employment in Europe and the EU'
Prof Nicola Countouris is the Director of the Research Department at the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) in Brussels and a Professor in Labour Law and European Law at the Faculty of Laws of University College London (UCL). He is a prolific author having written or co-written some 55 publications, including the definitive work “The Legal Construction of Personal Work Relations” co-authored with Mark Freedland (who was Nicola’s PhD supervisor) and published by Oxford University Press in 2011. He has acted as an independent expert for the International Labour Office, the ETUC, and on a number of European Commission funded projects. Nicola’s role at the ETUI, an independent research and training centre of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), places him at the cutting-edge of regulatory debates aimed at strengthening the social dimension of the European Union.
E1. Lord John Hendy 'The UK Status of Workers Bill, 2021 and the abolition of insecure work'
Lord (John) Hendy QC is one of the UK’s most prominent industrial relations and employment law barristers and the Chair of the London-based Institute of Employment Rights (IER). John, who practices from Old Square Chambers took silk in 1987, has appeared in most of the UK’s leading collective labour law cases in the last 36 years. In his capacity as a Labour Party-appointee to the House of Lords, he introduced the Status of Workers Bill in May 2021 which aims to abolish insecure work by replacing the UK’s overcomplicated employment status system with a universal status of ‘worker’ which covers all persons who are not truly self-employed. The IER points out that the Bill would have the effect that businesses that accord workers full rights are no longer undercut by those that choose to use loopholes in the current system to deny workers their rights. The Bill has gone through three readings in the House of Lords where it has widespread support, excluding the Government, and is now in the House of Commons as a Private Member’s Bill.
