Rethinking the nature of worker representation in the UK

William Brown is the Master of Darwin College, and has been the Montague Burton Professor of Industrial Relations at Cambridge University since 1985. He went to Leeds Grammar School and after graduating from Wadham College, Oxford, he worked at the National Board for Prices and Incomes. From there he went to the new University of Warwick, moving to the SSRC/ESRC’s Industrial Relations Research Unit when it was established there in 1970. Ten years later he became its Director. In Cambridge he has served as Chair of the Faculty of Economics and Politics, and is currently Chair of the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences. His research has been concerned with workplace bargaining, pay determination, and the effect of legal change and outside intervention on labour relations. For the past twenty years he has served as an ACAS arbitrator, was until recently a member of ACAS Council, and has been a member of the Low Pay Commission since it was established to manage the National Minimum Wage in 1997. In 2002 he was awarded a CBE for services to employment relations.

Related Priority Research Area: High Performance Work Systems

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