Tom Barratt
University of Western Australia
Rate Professor Tom Barratt
Fosters collaboration and teamwork.
Fair, constructive, and always motivating.
Helps students unlock their full potential.
Always positive and motivating in class.
About Tom
Dr Tom Barratt is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Management and Organisations in the University of Western Australia Business School. He earned his PhD in Employment Relations from the University of Western Australia in 2017, supervised by Associate Professor Michael Gillan and the late Professor Rob Lambert. Before joining UWA, Barratt was a Lecturer in the School of Business and Law at Edith Cowan University from 2018 to 2022. His academic career centers on labour geography, integrating industrial relations and human geography to examine work in spatial contexts.
Barratt's research specializations include the gig economy and resource peripheries. As Lead Researcher and ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) Fellow, he directs the 'Gig Fragments' project (2023-2025), a three-year study exploring how gig work fragments workers' lives, worker agency, and implications for Australia's industrial relations regulation. Collaborating with scholars like Dr Caleb Goods and Dr Alex Veen, his work has informed parliamentary inquiries, Fair Work Commission proceedings, government policymaking, and public discourse via The Conversation, print, and radio media. Key publications encompass '(Institutionally) working Australia's gig economy into employment: Analysing Menulog's modern award application' (Journal of Industrial Relations, 2025), 'Overcoming legitimacy challenges of novel HRM practices during internationalization: The case of two food-delivery platforms' (Journal of World Business, 2025), 'Woeful Pay, But Still, I Enjoy It: Refining Subjective Job Quality in Ride-Share Work' (New Technology, Work and Employment, 2026), 'Remaking the socio-spatial fix: Actors, time and crisis in two iron ore towns' (Environment and Planning A, 2024), 'Psychosocial workplace hazards and industrial relations: an introduction' (Journal of Industrial Relations, 2025), and 'Australia: Labour and the gig economy' (2023). Through these contributions, Barratt advances understandings of precarious employment in ride-sharing, food delivery, and mining regions.
Professional Email: tom.barratt@uwa.edu.au