HRMOB Seminar Series. A Faustian bargain for power? Theorising the mobilisation of Parents and Carers in UK Universities as new labour actors within organisations.
Published: 17 December 2024
14 January 2025. Dr Mark Gatto, Northumbria University & Dr Ana Lopes, Newcastle University.
Dr Mark Gatto, Northumbria University & Dr Ana Lopes, Newcastle University.
A Faustian bargain for power? Theorising the mobilisation of Parents and Carers in UK
Universities as new labour actors within organisations.
Tuesday, 14 January 2025. 14:00 - 15:30
Room 141A, Adam Smith Business School
Abstract
Parents and carers are ubiquitous in organisations at all levels; their experiences, and the associated value of care, have the power to humanise the employment relationship (Gatto & Lopes, 2022). While they can be categorised within recognisable ‘diversity network[s]’ (e.g.LGBTQ*) (Dennissen et al., 2019), we argue that Parents and Carers networks can be more usefully understood as actors in an assemblage of worker activists, community groups, and conventional trade unions (Lopes & Hall, 2015), whose aspiration is to organise to address in justice and advance diversity in organisations. We present thematic findings from 34 semistructured interviews with leaders and members of Parents and Carers networks in UK universities, which were analysed following a Rhyzoanalytic approach (Masny 2016). We ask, ‘what potential is there for PCNs to become powerful actors in the employment relationship?’ and secondly, ‘whose interests do these networks really serve?’ The article’s main contribution is our theorisation of how Parents and Carers Networks (PCNs) could become new actors in the employment relationship (ER) based on their unique membership profile.
Bio
Mark Gatto is an Assistant Professor in Critical Organisation Studies at Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University. His main research interest is parents at work (paid and unpaid) and gender inequity. Mark’s research explores patriarchal discourse and masculinities in organisational contexts. Mark also does research on Justice, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI), particularly with students as partners in learning. Mark’s 2023 book ‘Parents at work’ combined parent narratives, autoethnography and dystopian fiction into a ‘fictocriticism’. As an academic activist, he established and proudly leads the Northumbria University Parents and Carers Network in 2020, and co-chairs the national organisation for parents and carers in UK Higher Education-- UK PACT.
Ana Lopes is Senior Lecturer in Work and Employment at Newcastle University Business School, UK. Her main research interests are gender, diversity, precarity, employment relations, and participatory methods. She is a co-founder of alta, a prize-winning mentoring platform designed for professional women in the aviation and aerospace industry that emerged from an ESRC funded research project. Her current research focusses on parents and carers employee networks. Her published work includes a monograph, book chapters, and contributions to recognised outlets such as Work, Employment and Society, New Technology, Work and Employment and Industrial Relations Journal.
For further information, please contact business-seminar-series@glasgow.ac.uk.
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First published: 17 December 2024