Employment Law

by Hugh Collins

Overview

This updated edition offers a fresh approach to the law governing employment relations, emphasising the contemporary policy themes of social inclusion, competitiveness, and the rights of citizenship in the workplace. It acts as a succinct and accessible overview for those new to the subject as well as an excellent summary for students. Employment Law covers all the main areas of the subject including contracts of employment, anti-discrimination law, trade unions, industrial action, and human rights in the workplace. It also discusses how UK law, under the influence of EU law and international protection of human rights, has been transformed for the twenty-first century by pursuing new goals such as helping to achieve a better balance between work and life, to improve the competitiveness of business through partnership institutions, and to provide superior protection for the basic rights of employees in the workplace. Offering frequent comparisons with the law of other countries, including the United States, the book also discusses the effectiveness of employment regulation as well as examining the different national and transnational methods available.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780191018909
Publisher:	OUP Oxford
Publication date:	06/24/2010
Series:	Clarendon Law Series
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	594 KB

About the Author

Professor Hugh Collins studied law at Oxford University and Harvard Law School. He taught law at Brasenose College, Oxford, before moving in 1991 to the London School of Economics to the chair in English Law. He has previous books include the first edition of this title, Regulating Contracts (OUP, 1999), Labour Law: Texts and Materials 2nd edn ( with K.D. Ewing and A. McColgan, Hart Publishing, 2005), and A European Civil Code: The Way Forward (CUP, 2008).

Table of Contents

Table of Cases xi

Table of Legislation xviii

Part I Aims and Techniques of Employment Law 1

1 'Labour is not a Commodity' 3

1 The contract of employment 6

2 The shifting objectives of employment law 14

3 An emerging European model 20

2 Regulating the Workplace 27

1 Compliance, reflexivity, and procedural regulation 27

2 Regulating contracts 32

3 The case of mandatory regulation 42

4 Globalization and levels of regulation 45

Part II Social Inclusion 51

3 Opportunity and Discrimination 53

1 Proving discrimination 56

2 Justifying discrimination 63

3 Eradicating discrimination 74

4 Work and Life 77

1 A living wage 80

2 Equal pay 87

3 Flexible hours 91

4 The role of government 95

Part III Competitiveness 99

5 Cooperation 101

1 Mutual trust and confidence 105

2 Adaptation 108

3 Formality 109

4 Grievances 110

5 Human capital 111

6 Flexibility and fairness 116

6 Partnership 117

1 Promoting collective bargaining 121

2 Consultation mechanisms 127

3 Stakeholder organizations 131

4 Industrial democracy 133

7 Competition and Industrial Action 136

1 Migration 137

2 State aid 140

3 Industrial action 141

4 Contractual restraints on competition 153

8 Discipline and Dismissal 160

1 Contractual protection 162

2 Collective self-regulation 170

3 Mandatory regulation 172

4 The standard of fairness 176

5 The problem of compliance 180

9 Economic Security 183

1 Contractual allocation of risk 186

2 Safeguarding deferred pay 188

3 Economic dismissals 190

4 Transfers of businesses 198

5 Corporate insolvency 202

Part IV Citizenship 207

10 Civil Liberties at Work 209

1 Rights talk 209

2 The European Convention on Human Rights 213

3 Privacy 217

4 Freedom of expression 226

5 Dress and grooming codes 232

11 Social Rights 235

1 An integrated approach 236

2 Health and safety 239

3 The right to organize 244

4 The right to strike 249

5 The right to work 253

6 Rights and citizenship 255

12 Shelf-life 256

Index 261