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Hard‐to‐Reach Insider Actors on Light‐Touch Labour Market Regulation in the UK: Compliance, Deterrence, and Intelligence?

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  • Ian Clark

Abstract

Actors who deliver state policy on low wage precarious workers on the front‐line manage coercion and exploitation in the workplace by accepting the presence of both through permissiveness rather than seeking enforcement of labour market regulations. To develop this argument the article examines permissiveness in compliance, deterrence, and intelligence approaches used by regulators and enforcement agencies. The article provides a contribution to understanding the limitations of current approaches to labour market regulation which oversee noncompliance, confine deterrence activities to specific sectors, and use intelligence sources for law enforcement rather than labour market enforcement. The contribution does so by examining enforcement agency actors, and regulatory actors as hard‐to‐engage actors who play a critical part in the formulation labour market regulation policy on the front‐line.

Suggested Citation

  • Ian Clark, 2025. "Hard‐to‐Reach Insider Actors on Light‐Touch Labour Market Regulation in the UK: Compliance, Deterrence, and Intelligence?," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(6), pages 441-450, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:indrel:v:56:y:2025:i:6:p:441-450
    DOI: 10.1111/irj.70005
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gabriella Cioce & Ian Clark & James Hunter, 2022. "How does informalisation encourage or inhibit collective action by migrant workers? A comparative analysis of logistics warehouses in Italy and hand car washes in Britain," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(2), pages 126-141, March.
    2. Ian Clark & Trevor Colling, 2018. "Work in Britain's Informal Economy: Learning from Road†Side Hand Car Washes," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 56(2), pages 320-341, June.
    3. Stephen Mustchin & Miguel Martínez Lucio, 2023. "The fragmenting occupation of labour inspection and the degradation of regulatory and enforcement work inside the British state," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden, vol. 44(2), pages 526-546, May.
    4. Ian Clark & Alan Collins & James Hunter & Richard Pickford & Jack Barratt & Huw Fearnall-Williams, 2023. "Persistently non-compliant employment practice in the informal economy: permissive visibility in a multiple regulator setting," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 47(3), pages 611-632.
    5. Jon Cruddas, 2020. "The political constitution of labour from Donovan to Blair," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(3), pages 225-241, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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