Suchergebnisse

"To what extent is labour law an autonomous field of study? This book is based upon the papers written by a group of leading international scholars on this theme, delivered at a conference to mark Professor Mark Freedland's retirement from his teaching fellowship in Oxford. The chapters explore the boundaries and connections between labour law and other legal disciplines such as company law, competition law, contract law and public law; labour law and legal methodologies such as reflexive governance and comparative law; and labour law and other disciplines such as ethics, economics and political philosophy. In so doing, it represents a cross-section of the most sophisticated current work at the cutting edge of labour law theory."--Bloomsbury Publishing

In what circumstances should workers be entitled to enforce their legal rights in a court of law where the legal claim is somehow tainted by criminal activity? In Okedina v Chikale the Court of Appeal considered the effects of the illegality doctrine on a migrant worker's contract claims in circumstances where she did not have a 'right to work'.1 These claims included unfair and wrongful dismissal; unlawful deductions from wages by reference to her contract and the National Minimum Wage Regulations 1999; unpaid holiday pay; other breaches of the Working Time Regulations 1998; and a failure to provide written particulars and itemised payslips. Many of these rights are based in protective legislation.

This edited collection is the culmination of a comparative project on 'Voices at Work', funded by the Leverhulme Trust 2010-2013. The book aims to shed light on the problematic concept of worker 'voice' by tracking its complex interactions with various forms of law. Contributors to the volume identify the scope for continuity of legal approaches to voice and the potential for change in a sample of industrialised English speaking common law countries, namely Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK, and USA.

In this article, we seek to examine the potential for cross-fertilization of legal regimes relating to trade union representation of members in collective bargaining. The United Kingdom has moved from an entirely voluntarist model in the 1980s to a statutory regime which facilitates recognition of a trade union following majority support from workers (usually by a ballot). By way of contrast, New Zealand has shifted from a highly regulated award-based model in the 1980s to an "agency" model whereby an employer is required to bargain in good faith with any union representing two or more of the employer's employees, but with some balloting also contemplated for coverage of non-unionised workers. It is uncontroversial that the UK legislation has been severely limited in its effects in a context of ongoing decline in collective bargaining, while the NZ model offers only faint remediation of the dismembering of the collective bargaining system by the Employment Contracts Act 1991. In both legal systems, a Labour Party is now proposing implementation of forms of sectoral bargaining. We explore the reasons for these political and legal developments, exploring democratic and human rights rationales for their adoption, as well as more pragmatic approaches. In so doing we examine the scope for democratic trade union representation via consent or ballot, the role of individual human rights, and regulatory rationales. We conclude by considering how representative and regulatory approaches may be mutually reinforcing and addressing different understandings of "constitutionalisation". In so doing, we reaffirm the emphasis placed in Gordon Anderson's writings on substance over form.

It is well known that the elaborate notice provisions and the ban on secondary action in UK strike law have been the subject of consistent and long-standing criticism by authoritative international bodies, and regarded as a violation of international human rights law under the norms of the European Social Charter and the International Labour Organisation. The recent decision of the European Court of Human Rights in RMT v United Kingdom considered these domestic legal provisions against the standards set by Article 11 of the European Convention of Human Rights. In an ambivalent judgment, the Court appeared to give with one hand and take back with another. While affirming that the right to strike is 'clearly protected' under Article 11, a legal conclusion with important ramifications in the domestic legal context, the trade union's complaint was not upheld. The complaint concerning the pre-strike notice provisions was rejected as inadmissible, and while secondary action was protected as an 'accessory' freedom under Article 11(1), the UK's complete ban on secondary action was regarded as justified under Article 11(2) on the basis of a wide margin of appreciation accorded to the State. The article contends that this reasoning is deeply flawed and the likely product of political pressures that are compromising the effective functioning of a human rights court.

Comments on Uber BV v Aslam (SC) on whether drivers operating through a ride-sharing platform were "workers" for the purpose of employment protection legislation. Highlights the court's approach to the relevance of the parties' written documentation and considers issues including whether the case's purposive approach applied to employees, its effect on the conceptual autonomy of the worker category and the relevance of substitution clauses.

In July 2017, the Taylor Review on 'Modern Working Practices' was published. Led by Matthew Taylor, the Review aimed to consider the implications of new emerging business models for both worker rights and employer obligations. Its recommendations seem ill-informed, methodologically unsound and, ultimately, unlikely to address the widespread deprivation of workers' rights within the 'gig' economy and contemporary workplace. We shape our critique of the Taylor approach by reference to the constructions of 'choice' used in the Review and the limited scope permitted for worker 'voice'. In particular, we observe an evasion of international labour standards relevant to 'decent work' and a lack of attention n to fundamental human rights. Identifying methodological flaws in the Report and focusing on three central areas of reform: employment status; zero hours contracts; and workers' voice and representation, this article critically analyses a number of the proposals put forwards, concluding that many of the Taylor Review recommendations are not only problematic, but dangerous, with potentially serious deregulatory repercussions for UK workers if actioned upon and implemented by the current Government.