History of the LEW conferences

The first national conference on Labour, Employment, and Work (LEW) was held at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington in May 1984. It was based on an idea by Professor Philip Morrison, who was researching employment issues at the time.

Professor Morrison noted that even during the mid-1980s when unemployment was increasing rapidly, there was no regular forum in New Zealand for sharing recent research findings and ideas. In partnership with Peter Brosnan of the (then) Industrial Relations Centre at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, he organised the first of what have become the LEW conferences.

A record of that first conference may be located in university and public libraries as Brosnan, P.A and P.S. Morrison (eds) 1984 Labour and Employment Research in New Zealand. Bibliography and proceedings of a workshop were held at the University 14–15 May, 1984. It was published by the Geography Department and Industrial Relations Centre, Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 183 pages.

The second conference was held in 1985, and then every two years, at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington. It continued to be a collaboration between the Industrial Relations Centre and the Institute of Geography, with each organisation taking turns at organising and hosting the event. The topics and focus of the conference evolved over that period and extended into other aspects of work and work organisation.

LEW 2016 sees a break from the past conferences with the Centre for Labour, Employment, and Work (formerly the Industrial Relations Centre) now taking responsibility for the organisation and presentation of the conference and a continued expansion of content for the conference programme.

Proceedings of all LEW conferences may be consulted in major public and university libraries using the following references, or are available.

Morrison, P.S. (ed.) 1993—Labour, employment and work in New Zealand. Proceedings of the Fifth Conference. Published by the Department of Geography, Victoria University of Wellington.

Morrison, P.S. (ed.) 1995—Labour, employment and work in New Zealand. Proceedings of the Sixth Conference. Published by the Department of Geography, Victoria University of Wellington. 390 pages.

Morrison, P.S. (ed.) 1997—Labour, employment and work in New Zealand. Proceedings of the Seventh Conference. Published by the Institute of Geography, Victoria University of Wellington. 292 pages.

Morrison, P.S. (ed.) 1999—Labour, employment and work in New Zealand. Proceedings of the Eighth Conference. Published by the Institute of Geography, Victoria University of Wellington. 291 pages.

Morrison, P.S. (ed.) 2001—Labour, employment and work in New Zealand. Proceedings of the Ninth Conference. Published by the Institute of Geography, Victoria University of Wellington. 317 pages.

Blumenfeld, S. (ed.) 2002—Labour, employment and work in New Zealand. Proceedings of the Tenth Conference. Published by the Industrial Relations Center. 289 pages.

Blumenfeld, S. and G. Lafferty (eds.) 2004—Labour, employment and work in New Zealand. Proceedings of the Eleventh Conference. Published by the Industrial Relations Center. 458 pages.

Morrison, P.S (ed) 2006—Labour, employment and work in New Zealand. Proceedings of the Twelfth Conference. Published by the School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences. 444 pages.

Morrison, P.S. (ed) 2008—Labour, employment and work in New Zealand. Proceedings of the Thirteenth Conference (held in conjunction with the Australian Labour Market Research Workshop). Published by the School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences. 611 pages (in press as of 17 June 2010).

Blumenfeld, S., Donnelly, N. and Plimmer, G. (ed.) 2011—Labour, employment and work in New Zealand. Proceedings of the Fourteenth Conference. Published by the Industrial Relations Centre. 480 pages.