A Social Recovery, Workplace Democracy and Security: COVID-19 and Labour Law

Ewan McGaughey

Working Papers from Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge

Abstract: The Covid-19 pandemic has shown the painful consequences of poor job security and workplace democracy. The UK government’s initial flirt with ‘herd immunity’, the delay in lockdown, and the absence of a work strategy that prioritised safety after the summer of 2020, caused among the most appalling death rates in the world, worse than Trump’s America. However, a swift change in the job security policy stemmed mass unemployment, after initial reports of 2.1 million people claiming unemployment benefits. The ‘Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme’ eventually meant that the unemployment statistics (as opposed to claimant count) showed only a modest jobless rise. Comparison with the US where there are effectively no rights, and other countries with strong rights, shows that universal social security and workplace democracy are at the core of successful economic performance. This paper explains the UK’s health and safety rights, how the job retention scheme was unfurled with extension to employed and self-employed, and the connection between votes at work and employment. It shows how reality discredits the minority views of economic theorists who oppose labour rights, and suggests the legal reforms we can undertake to achieve a social recovery.

Keywords: COVID-19; coronavirus; labour law; labor law; employment law (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D01 D21 D22 E01 E24 I10 I13 I14 K10 K31 K32 K34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-law and nep-mac
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