In Memoriam WILLIAM (WILLY) BROWN 1945–2019
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12499 |
| Author | David Metcalf |
| Published date | 01 December 2019 |
| Date | 01 December 2019 |
British Journal of Industrial Relations doi: 10.1111/bjir.12499
57:4 December 2019 0007–1080 pp. 944–946
In Memoriam
WILLIAM (WILLY) BROWN 1945–2019
David Metcalf
Willy Brown made huge contributions in four areas:
rAcademic scholarship
rAcademic societies, administration and teaching
rInternational networks
rPublic service, with a decade-long stint on the Low Pay Commission
(LPC)
1. Academic scholarship
Willy combined detailed institutional industrial relations knowledge with
social science areas such as economics and employment law. Many employ-
ment relations academics focus onlyon institutions and processes and neglect
outcomes. By contrast, Willy embraced all three spheres.
One early work of great import was the report for the National Board for
Prices and Incomes on piece work systems in 1969. This anticipated — by
30 or so years — much of the so-called New Economics of Personnel. The
report essentially set out when it is ecient or equitable to pay by time and
when to pay by results(PBR). Thus, Ed Lazear’s wonderful article on whythe
firm should pay windscreen repairers by team-based PBR rather than hourly
was anticipated by 40 years. Incidentally, Lazear’s case study firm went bust
shortly after this article was published.
The Donovan Royal Commission reported in 1968. It was set up to analyse
productivity, unocial strikes and wage inflation. It dominated much of the
academic debatein the 1970s. Willy was generous in his welcomeof the Report.
(By contrast, I wrote thatit simply ignored the three areas that it was supposed
to investigate).Willy wrote a brief retrospective — 50 years on — shortly prior
to his death.
Centre for Economic Performance,LSE.
C
2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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