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The purpose of this paper is to argue for a strengthening of the relational aspect of social work and for initiatives that involve local people and local communities.

A think piece based on observations of the current situation and supporting evidence.

Social work has become distanced from those whom it seeks to help. Case management and risk assessment need to be complemented by a more human approach based on positive relationships between professionals and service users.

An informed discussion on the future of social work.

The purpose of this paper is to review “institutional experimentation” for protecting workers in response to the contraction of the standard employment relationship and the corresponding rise of “non-standard” forms of paid work.

The paper draws on the existing research and knowledge base of the authors as well as a thorough review of the extant literature relating to: non-standard employment contracts; sources of labour supply engaging in non-standard work; exogenous pressures on the employment relationship; intermediaries that separate the management from the control of labour; and entities that subvert the employment relationship.

Post-war industrial relations scholars characterised the traditional regulatory model of collective bargaining and the standard employment contract as a “web of rules”. As work relations have become more market mediated, new institutional arrangements have developed to govern these relations and regulate the terms of engagement. The paper argues that these are indicative of an emergent “patchwork of rules” which are instructive for scholars, policymakers, workers’ representatives and employers seeking solutions to the contraction of the traditional regulatory model.

While the review of the institutional experimentation is potentially instructive for developing solutions to gaps in labour regulation, a drawback of this approach is that there are limits to the realisation of policy transfer. Some of the initiatives discussed in the paper may be more effective than others for protecting workers on non-standard contracts, but further research is necessary to test their effectiveness including in different contexts.

The findings indicate that a task ahead for the representatives of government, labour and business is to determine how to adapt the emergent patchwork of rules to protect workers from the new vulnerabilities created by, for example, employer extraction and exploitation of their individual bio data, social media data and, not far off, their personal genome sequence.

The paper addresses calls to examine the “institutional intersections” that have informed the changing ways that work is conducted and regulated. These intersections transcend international, national, sectoral and local units of analysis, as well as supply chains, fissured organisational dynamics, intermediaries and online platforms. The analysis also encompasses the broad range of stakeholders including businesses, labour and community groups, nongovernmental organisations and online communities that have influenced changing institutional approaches to employment protection.

This introductory chapter surveys institutional experimentation that has emerged internationally in response to the contraction of the traditional model of employment protection. Various initiatives are discussed according to the particular challenges they are designed to address: the emergence of non-standard employment contracts; increasing sources of labour supply engaging in non-standard work; intensification of exogenous pressures on the employment relationship; the growth of intermediaries that separate the management from the control of labour; and the emergence of entities that subvert the employment relationship entirely. Whereas post-war industrial relations scholars characterised the traditional regulatory model as a ‘web of rules’, we argue that nascent institutional experimentation is indicative of an emergent ‘patchwork of rules’. The identification of such experimentation is instructive for scholars, policymakers, workers’ representatives and employers seeking solutions to the contraction of the traditional regulatory model.

Migrant workers are often concentrated in segments of the labour market characterised by low-paid and insecure work and which fall outside of the traditional ‘web of rules’ providing workers with protections. Institutional experimentation provides an opportunity to rectify this. This chapter examines the reasons why migrant workers are often subject to exploitation and marginalisation in the labour market. It then analyses the roles of the three main actors with the capacity to protect and improve migrant workers’ labour market position: governments, trade unions and community organisations. It proposes a ‘co-regulation’ approach based on collaborative institutional experimentation between these actors as the most effective way to address the exploitation and marginalisation of migrant workers.

In this concluding chapter, we draw together the various contributions presented in this volume, discuss the broader implications of our findings, and reflect on how this builds upon Willy Brown's work. The chapter examines how the patchwork of rules has been altered by new and emerging challenges, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the rise of global supply chains and new forms of business. We return to the central objective of this volume of identifying and analysing the viability of various institutions for addressing these challenges and discuss how these might form the basis of a new web of rules for protecting labour standards in the future.

This chapter assesses the response by trade unions in New Zealand, Australia and Ireland to labour market deregulation since the 1980s. While these three countries have been on the front line of neoliberalism, and the traditional web of rules in each country has been weakened, change has occured unevenly, in part due to different union strategies. The chapter examines the ways in which unions employed institutional experimentations to defend the collectivist web of rules and strengthen labour standards. It argues that an augmented model of pluralism has emerged in all three countries in the form of stronger individual rights but that this is no substitute for collective bargaining mechanisms.

There can be little doubt that the risk and fluctuation of demand taken on by employers has been increasingly passed onto employees. We are witnessing a fragmented contract of rules largely determined by employers, for employers. Here the conventional form of employment relations is non-unionism and the management of employees through Human Resource Management (HRM). This chapter critically reviews the underlying assumptions underpinning the rise of HRM, not least its unitarist undercurrent, narrow emphasis on performance and limited incorporation of multiple stakeholders. The chapter then uses Amazon as an exemplary case to illuminate these dynamics in practice and to offer a critical review of what constitutes a meaningful and successful organisation in this new era of work. The chapter concludes by detailing prospects for redress and institutional experimentation, including via technological platforms.