Trade Union and Employment Forum

This new forum aims to bring together academics, business groups, policy makers and the public interested in how understandings of historical trade relations can inform current policy debates. In so doing, it builds on History & Policy’s existing collaboration with the AHRC Imagining Markets network. Forthcoming events include policy workshops and public seminars focused on the connections between Britain’s historical trade relations and contemporary trade challenges such as the EU referendum. In collaboration with the Centre for Imperial and Global History at the University of Exeter, the forum will also publish opinion articles and policy papers on how economic history can inform international trade discussions of topical interest.


  • European Works Councils: The Effects of Brexit

    Join Catherine Barnard: Brexit and the Legal Challenges facing European Works Councils & Jonathan Hayward: Brexit and the Practical Challenges facing European Works Councils, for this online event on 23 January 2024.

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  • Democracy at Work: 150 years of the TUC

    In October this year, to celebrate the TUC’s 150th anniversary, the History and Policy Trade Union and Employment Forum held a conference in King’s College, London at which a series of experts and practitioners presented a picture of key figures during that time and discussed past and current roles of the TUC.

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  • The future of UK labour law

    Four experts from the academic history and policy making fields explore how the entire framework of labour law in Britain might be revisited following Britain's departure from the EU.

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  • Flexible work and its consequences: historical perspectives

    On 6 April Noel Whiteside, Professor of Comparative Public Policy at the University of Warwick and Sally Brett, Head of Equality, Inclusion and Culture at the British Medical Association discussed flexible working now and in the past.

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  • Workers in the Boardroom

    During her bid for the Tory leadership in July 2016, Theresa May called for employee representation on company boards. The idea was quietly shelved but remains existing practice at some firms – an expert panel gathered to discuss the history and practice of the idea.

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About Us


H&P is based at the Institute of Historical Research, Senate House, University of London.

We are the only project in the UK providing access to an international network of more than 500 historians with a broad range of expertise. H&P offers a range of resources for historians, policy makers and journalists.