While employers seek numerical and functional flexibility from the workforce, the power of employers to rewrite the terms of the contract unilaterally and to offer only precarious work packages undermines job security and economic security. The law provides little protection for employees, though continuity of employment and a permanent job can sometimes be established through statutory measures. Legislation may grant employees a right to more predictable work.

Based on international standards, the EU Directive on Working Time, implemented in the Working Time Regulations, places limits on the working week, mandates rest periods each day and each week, and provides for paid annual leave. These rights are subject to various exclusions for certain types of employment, permit some opt-outs by terms in the contract of employment, and also permit collective agreements to modify the rights. The chapter considers these various matters, and concludes by examining the weak remedies provided by health and safety inspectors and some civil claims.

Employees who have been dismissed may bring a claim under the common law for wrongful dismissal where the dismissal was a breach of contract. Compensation for wrongful dismissal is usually limited to compensation for a period of reasonable notice of dismissal. Statute provides minimum periods of notice that must be given. Compensation for failure to give proper notice can be avoided if the employer can demonstrate that the employee committed a repudiatory breach of contract. Claims for compensation for other kinds of breach of the terms of the contract may be available, but there can be no compensation for breach of the implied term of mutual trust and confidence in the context of dismissal. Nor can damages be obtained for breach of a contractualdisciplinary procedure; an employee can only obtain an injunction to require the employer to follow the correct procedure. In general, however, injunctions against dismissal are unavailable because of the breakdown of mutual trust and confidence between employer and employee.

Statutory employment rights have traditionally been confined to employees, excluding independent contractors. Courts resist the use of misleading terms in contracts in order to create the appearance that many employees are independent contractors. Recent legislation has extended some statutory protections to some economically dependent independent contractors known as ’limb b workers’. Triangular relations where the function of employer is distributed between two or more businesses create the problem for agency workers and platform workers that it is unclear which, if any, business bears the responsibility of conforming to employment rights.

EU law has developed mandatory requirements for employers to inform and consult employee representatives. These various provisions remain in force in British law post-Brexit, though Brexit will clearly have implications for their future development. In this chapter, we consider information and consultation obligations relating to collective redundancies, as well as the more wide ranging provisions in the Information and Consultation of Employees Regulations 2004, and the Transnational Information and Consultation of Employees Regulations 1999, as amended in 2010.

The chapter examines statutory entitlements to caring leave and flexible working. The statutory right to paid maternity leave on the birth of a child has been extended to paid paternity leave, shared parental leave and shared parental pay. There are also rights to paid neonatal care leave and parental bereavement leave, and rights to unpaid leave to deal with family care emergencies. More generally, all employees have the right to request flexible work arrangements involving changes in their hours and location of work. There is also protection from discrimination against part-time workers in comparison to full-time workers.

The employment relation is normally understood as a contract of employment. The employer, as usually the stronger bargaining partner, is free to determine the parties’ obligations through fixing the express terms of the contract. Regulation requires the employer to disclose those terms in writing. There is no legal control over unfair terms. However, collective agreements with a recognised trade union often fix the principal express terms of the contract.

Large corporations, trade unions and labour law now function within a global economy, creating the need to develop effective international labour standards addressed both to governments and corporations, which are now expected to take greater responsibility for labour standards throughout their global operations. This chapter examines the international legal framework for labour law within which domestic law operates, and the more recent initiatives focused specifically on corporations, as well as questions of exploitation associated with growing labour mobility, before concluding with a discussion about the prospects for global labour law.

Chapter 1 introduces the main issues raised in Labour Law and its social and economic significance in regulating workplace relations. The chapter introduces the principal sources of labour law in the UK, which include statutes, the common law and European law and the difficulties in securing compliance by employers with those laws. It describes the system of employment tribunals and ordinary courts where disputes are resolved. Finally the chapter introduces some contemporary themes concerning precarious work, work/life balance and human rights at work.

Trade unions play a critical role in labour law, in representing workers, negotiating terms and conditions of employment by collective bargaining, lobbying for stronger legislation to improve working conditions and enhance job security, and assisting in the enforcement of legal rights before courts and tribunals. Employers are often hostile to trade unions, and workers need legal protection from the consequences of such hostility. In this Chapter we consider the legislation designed to protect workers from exclusion, blacklisting, discrimination, and victimization because of their trade union membership and activities. We also examine the right not to be a trade union member, as well as the purpose and implications of such a right.T

The common law permits employers to fix the wages payable under the contract of employment and also upholds a broad principle of no work–no pay. Statute protects employees against deductions from their wages that are not authorised by the terms of their contract. Subject to the express terms of the contract, in some circumstances employers may be under a duty to provide work so that employees can earn a living. These rules embrace a principle of mutuality that protects the expectation of the employer that work will be performed and of the employee that work will be remunerated. The National Minimum Wage sets a floor on wages for all workers. The chapter describes the method of assessing whether the minimum wage is paid in various kinds of jobs. It concludes by assessing the various types of enforcement mechanisms, including HMRC inspectors, penalties and civil claims, and assesses the effectiveness of the law.

One of the key functions of trade unions is to engage with employers or groups of employers to regulate terms and conditions of employment by collective bargaining. In the United Kingdom, the state historically played a key role in promoting and sustaining collective bargaining procedures on a sector-wide basis. There has since been a decentralization of collective bargaining activity to enterprise level, a process encouraged by the state, giving employers more control and flexibility over working conditions. This chapter examines the statutory procedures that were introduced in 1999 to support trade unions seeking to establish collective bargaining arrangements at enterprise level, and considers the statutory rights which exist to support collective bargaining, whether secured by voluntary or statutory means. Addressing specifically employer union-avoidance techniques, the analysis concludes by assessing the marginal impact of the law in practice, and considers proposals for reform.

This chapter explores the question of whether the epistemology of the secret of international law and the necessities it puts in place can be resisted. No definite answer to that question is sought here and only tentative reflections on the possibility of resisting the epistemology of the secret are provided in the following paragraphs. This chapter proceeds as follows. This chapter starts by elaborating on why it matters to spare no effort to resist the epistemology of the secret and rein in its consequences. The chapter then recalls that a mere termination or discontinuation of the epistemology of the secret, of its necessities, and of all the literary, hermeneutical, critical, economic, and ideological attitudes it entails is an impossibility. Resistance, it is subsequently argued, can only take the form of an act of obnubilation, a notion whose concrete implications for international legal thought and practice are subsequently spelled out.