Professor Lydia Hayes: Is labour law a matter of public health?
A recent newcomer to Liverpool, Professor Lydia Hayes explores the evidence connecting labour law to the state of public health in the UK. Who works where, and the arrangements under which they do so, are key drivers of public health outcomes – yet the protection of our collective health is a matter woefully overlooked in the way that standards of employment are governed in law.
Lydia draws on examples from court decisions, equality laws, safety regulations and the protection of wages to show that what passes as lawful in working life can be harmful to public health and substantially shorten our lives. She argues that ignoring the connection between employment, law and public health may be convenient for law-makers who seek to paint public health as a luxury afforded only in the context of strong economic performance. However, for those who are more attentive to the evidence, it offers the potential to rethink how we regulate the world of work and why.
Lydia is Professor of Labour Rights at Liverpool School of Law and Social Justice. She is author of the multi-award winning book Stories of Care: A Labour of Law (2017), a Principal Investigator for Wellcome Trust on the regulation of care work, and has published widely on trade union rights, minimum wage, equal pay, migrant workers, gender and class.
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