Willy Brown

• Date: 01 November 2019
• Published date: 01 November 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/irj.12274

Willy Brown

Thursday, 1 August 2019 2044 BST.

My friend and colleague of more than 50 years, Willy Brown, who has died aged 74,

was an expert in industrial relations, holding chairs in the subject at both Warwick

and Cambridge, and an academic administrator and leader who held senior positions

in scholarly associations, governmental bodies, and Cambridge, including the

Mastership of Darwin College. His administration, research, policy formulation,

and, perhaps above all, his humanity and decency made him one of the most influen-

tial academics of his generation.

The concept of “fairness”was central to his research. He believed workplace repre-

sentatives were motivated not by political militancy but by a desire to create stability

and predictability in pay and other matters, where management had abdicated

responsibility, preferring to rely on payment systems that simply saw workers as

earnings-maximisers. The result, in his view, was that employers got the unions they

deserved.

He was a founding member of the Low Pay Commission that introduced the

National Minimum Wage in 1998. The success of the Low Pay Commission in

enhancing the National Minimum Wage over the past 20 years, without producing

either unemployment or inflation, largely stems from its structure of social partner-

ship—in which Willy played an important role as a mediator—and its methodology

of rigorous research, solid statistics, and academic integrity, which Willy was instru-

mental in introducing.

His mediation skills were also often used by the Advisory Conciliation and

Arbitration Service on whose Council he served. And despite being a modest person,

he could not conceal his delight at its implicit compliment in asking him to mediate a

dispute between its own management and staff.

Although much of his research was informed by fieldwork case studies, he was the

driving force in launching large-scale, representative workplace employment relations

surveys in the UK, which led to the government’sflagship workplace employment re-

lations surveys and to similar surveys in Australia and Canada.

Willy’s theoretically informed, empirically based, and policy-relevant research,

communicated in clear and elegant prose, will have a lasting impact on the field of

industrial relations. So too will his academic generosity in sharing authorship, his

collegiality that produced so many friends, and his mentorship of numerous students

and younger colleagues in the UK and many other countries, including Canada,

Australia and China.

Willy is survived by his wife, Professor Jackie Scott; four stepdaughters, Rachel

and Sarah Hewitt, Sarah Goodwin and Rachel Scott; six grandchildren; and his older

brother Henry. Professor George Bain Readers may wish to refer to the IRJ Tribute

Issue to Professor William Brown on his retirement in July 2012 (IRJ Vol.43 issue 4

July 2012).

Industrial Relations Journal 50:5–6, 416

ISSN 0019-8692

© 2019 Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd