In 2017, Professor Tonia Novitz wrote on ‘Collective Bargaining, Equality and Migration: The Journey to and from Brexit’ (Industrial Law Journal 109 – 133). The warnings her paper issued regarding wage regulation, the working environment and migrant labour attracted the interest of Swedish academics, who asked her to join them in a grant application to the Swedish Research Council (SRC) for a project on ‘An inclusive and sustainable Swedish labour law - the ways ahead’.

In December 2017, SRC funding was approved of £572,453. Professor Novitz’s share of the grant income for the University of Bristol contribution is £77,790 over three years. Starting in February 2018, the project will focus on Swedish and EU labour laws which have had alienating effects akin to those felt in the UK. Its research will explore the impact of deregulatory policies, effects of economic shocks on workers and links to nationalism.

Looking at changes in the Swedish industrial relations model and its challenges relating to coverage of workers in the contemporary labour market, the project will examine wage setting through collective agreements and the consequences of the absence of a statutory national minimum wage. It will investigate the working environment and its regulation, considering the increasing incidence of bullying and harassment at work, as well as working conditions for labour migrants, in terms of access to work, justice at work and citizenship.

Professor Novitz will be engaging in a comparison with the UK and whether labour-related factors that contributed to the Brexit decision are identifiable in the Swedish context. The project as a whole will assess how the Swedish labour law framework can be adapted in order to make it inclusive and sustainable.