Working Lives Conference

Working Lives: The scale and nature of precarious work and labour market non-compliance in the UK and beyond.
Presented by UCL Department of Security and Crime Science.

Text that reads Working Lives: the scale and nature of precarious work and labour market non-compliance in the UK and beyond

The Fair Work Agency and UCL invite you to this two-day conference on workers’ rights, their protection and enforcement. The event launches a landmark study on the scale and nature of labour market non-compliance and other work-based harms across the UK’s four nations (the Working Lives Project). It will also showcase other cutting-edge research and interventions nationally and internationally.

The event will be opened by the Advisory Board Chair of the Fair Work Agency, Matthew Taylor. Other keynote lectures will be delivered by David Weil (Brandeis University) on Responding to precarious work through strategic enforcement: Prospects and challenges, by Virginia Mantouvalou (UCL) on Labour rights for precarious workers, and by Alex Bryson (UCL) on Workers’ Rights: What Can Unions Do?

Focal topics across the two days will include precarious work, wage theft and other financial harms to workers, health and safety at work, bullying and harassment, payslips and contracts, trade unions, worker voice and worker organising.

Distinguished international speakers will include Natalia Ollus (HEUNI), Andie Noack (Toronto Metropolitan University), Leah Vosko (York University, Canada), Nik Theodore (University of Illinois), and John Howe (University of Melbourne). Representatives of the International Labour Organization, Citizen’s Advice, Low Pay Commission, Verian and many others will contribute to the event.

The event is aimed at policy-makers, operational staff, trade unions, NGOs, businesses, academics, students and other parts of civil society.

Delegates are welcome to attend for part or all of the event. There will be a mixture of presentations, roundtables, and breakout sessions on other cutting-edge research and responses from the UK and internationally.

Day one will focus on the new Fair Work Agency, the legal and regulatory landscape, overarching findings from the Working Lives project and financial harms to workers (including NMW violations, unpaid extra work and unfair deductions).

Day two will focus on health and safety, targeted enforcement, the qualitative elements to the Working Lives project, trade unions, recommendations, and the future of workers’ rights and their enforcement.

You can access the full agenda here:

Working Lives Conference Agenda

The underpinning research was commissioned by the UK’s Director of Labour Market Enforcement and co-funded by the Department for Business and Trade and the Economic and Social Research Council.

Matthew Taylor wearing a blue shirt and looking at the camera

Matthew Taylor CBE FAcSS

Keynote speaker, Chair of the Fair Work Agency

Matthew Taylor led the landmark Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices, published in 2017, which shaped subsequent UK labour market reforms, including those currently being implemented through the Employment Rights Act. His work on the review led to his recognition in the 2019 Birthday Honours list, being appointed a CBE. Earlier in his career, Matthew was Chief Adviser on Political Strategy to Prime Minister Tony Blair and Director of the Institute for Public Policy Research.

Virginia Mantouvalou

Professor of Human Rights and Labour Law at UCL and Co-Director of the Institute for Human Rights.

University College London

Virginia is the author of Structural Injustice and Workers’ Rights (OUP 2023), runner up for the 2025 Inner Temple Book Prize, and co-author or editor of several major works on labour law and human rights, including Human Rights at Work (2024) and Structural Injustice and the Law (2024).

David Weil

Samuel F. and Rose B. Gingold Chair in Human Development, Professor of Economics at Brandeis University, and Visiting Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.

David was named the Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor by President Barack Obama and served in that post from 2014 to January 2017. He is the author of more than 130 articles and five books including The Fissured Workplace.

Alex Bryson

Professor of Quantitative Social Science at UCL’s Social Research Institute.

University College London

Alex's research focuses on industrial relations, labour economics and programme evaluation He is Editor-in-Chief of Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society and he is on the organizing committees for the Colloquium on Personnel Economics and Counterfactual Methods for Policy Impact Evaluation.