Research

Aristea's research focuses on the empirical study of law and on applied legal and policy analysis, with particular reference to labour law, industrial relations and EU social policy. Her research has been theoretically driven by an interest in the application of social systems theory and the capability approach to the study of supranational regulation and its relationship with national legal and economic systems. Her work so far has included empirical socio-legal research in employee representation and collective bargaining, the impact of the case law by the Court of Justice of the European Union on industrial action, collective agreements and procurement, the effects of the financial crisis on national systems of labour law, the interplay between EU law and precarious work and the effectiveness of enforcement of labour rights. 

Her research has been funded by a number of organisations, including the Economic and Social Research Council, the European Commission, the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, the Leverhulme Trust and the Global Players' Union (FifPro). She has carried out consultancy projects for the European Parliament, the European Commission, the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) and the International Labour Organisation (ILO). She has provided expert evidence on labour law and industrial relations issues to, among others, the Social Affairs Committees of the European Parliament and the Council of Europe.

Her current research focuses on the evolution of remedial rules and institutions in comparative labour law. Classifying and Understanding Remedies in Comparative Labour Law (CURE) is a 5-year (2024-2029) comparative project, originally funded by the ERC Consolidator Grant scheme and guaranteed by UKRI (EP/Y036875/1). Its overall objectives are to set a new intellectual agenda and direction in comparative labour law by examining the concept and function of remedial rules and institutions. Reframing remedies as an intermediary link between different systems crucial in the production of our imaginaries of justice, CURE aims to provide a new reading of labour law systems on the basis of how they respond to violations, wrongs and injustices. The 5-year project adopts a multi-dimensional, comparative and multi-method research design to evaluate how the juridical concept of remedies has evolved across different dimensions of the employment relationship in a set of different national systems (France, Greece, Poland, Sweden and the UK). Data collection and analysis will include legal doctrinal and empirical (i.e. legal computational and qualitative) methods that are specifically designed to capture and interpret internal (i.e. legal) and external (i.e. political and economic) perspectives on the regulation of the remedial framework in comparative labour law.

Recently completed projects include the following:

• PROCURFAIR (01/10/2021 → 30/09/2023): EU-funded comparative project on Promoting Decent Work through Public Procurement in Cleaning and Private Security Services (Procurfair project overview)
• Effective Enforcement of EU Labour Law, co-editor of book (Bloomsbury Hart 2022) with contributions from members of the Transnational Trade Union Rights Experts' Group of the European Trade Union Institute.
• Alliance MBS Strategic research investment fund (SRIF): The State as a Socially Responsible Customer (with Damian Grimshaw, Mat Johnson, Stephen Mustchin and Laura Watt) (2017-2022)

Email for contact: [email protected]

Aristea joined the School of Law in September 2014. She holds a PhD from Warwick Business School and in the past worked at the Universities of Cambridge, Warwick, Manchester Business School and Lancaster. During part of her research, she was visiting professor at IDHE (École Normale Supérieure de Cachan, France) and the Uppsala Forum on Peace, Democracy and Justice (University of Uppsala, Sweden). She is currently research associate at the Centre for Business Research (University of Cambridge), the London Centre for Corporate Governance and Ethics (Birkbeck College) and the New Zealand Work and Labour Market Institute (Auckland Technical University). She is a member of the Transnational Trade Union Rights Experts of the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) and sits on the executive committee of the Institute of Employment Rights.