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The publication of the recent Consultation Document, proposing a new legislative framework for a Single Equality Bill for Great Britain, provides the opportunity for consideration of the regulatory approaches that might be adopted in such legislation. The regulatory approaches adopted in previous anti-discrimination legislation are considered, followed by a discussion of a newer approach to regulation, which has been termed ‘reflexive regulation’. This newer form of regulation appears to form the preferred basis for regulation in the Consultation Paper. The potential problems with this method of regulation are examined, in particular the need to ensure that the pre-conditions for effective reflexive regulation are identified and created. It is argued that the Consultation Paper has failed to address this issue, and that several changes need to be made before the use of reflexive regulation in the area of equality is likely to be successful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prevention and elimination of modern slavery is a priority of this era, eliciting responses at an international level and in domestic laws. The duty of organisations to ensure transparency in their supply chains is the strongest representation of corporate responsibility in this field. Less attention has been given to the current/potential role of insolvency mechanisms, in relation to companies' commission of modern slavery offences, and in relation to their failure to comply with their supply-chain obligations. This paper engages with this novel question by examining the proposition to incorporate a directors' disqualification sanction into the United Kingdom framework governing companies' modern slavery supply chain obligations. This represents an opportunity, insofar as the disqualification regime is ostensibly well-placed to address weaknesses in companies' compliance with their responsibilities. However, it represents a challenge in that adoption and implementation would have to navigate drawbacks such as the limitations of existing grounds for disqualification and potential weaknesses in the design and enforcement of a bespoke sanction. Moreover, it should confront uncertainty as to whether disqualification is an effective tool for preventing misconduct by the professional/executive class of managers at the helm of large companies. Increased emphasis on regulating the human rights obligations of companies makes it imperative that this question is addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migrants in the UK from the Central and Eastern European states that acceded to the European Union in 2004 and 2007 often have close proximity to precarity. This contribution illustrates that the positioning of the migrants in the casualised labour market has not occurred by accident but has been brought about by the (disingenuous) way in which nationals of the accession states were permitted access to the UK labour market. The positioning has been further maintained through the increasingly restrictive direction of the intertwined EU-UK response to claims for support from vulnerable EU migrant citizens. This piece presents the idea of 'confined labour market citizenship' as a way to understand the way many migrants have experienced working and living in the UK in the years following EU enlargement. This concept, it is argued, is able to capture: the role of the UK state as it regulated post-accession migration rules and implemented laws relating to social security entitlement; the influence of the broader EU framework on free movement and citizenship of the Union; and the impact of employers 'on the ground' in creating and exacerbating conditions of precarity and exploitation. The analysis throughout the paper exposes how EU8 and EU2 migrants have served as scapegoats for the result of the Brexit referendum, deflecting attention from the instrumentalisation of the migration issue by politicians. They have also been guinea pigs, testing out a confined version of EU citizenship with less tolerance for those in precarious and insecure work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last 10 years, many OECD countries introduced reforms which included automatic enrolment or mandatory participation in privately managed pension schemes. The current article aims to reveal the benefits and costs of privately managed pension schemes. The article uses a study of pension schemes’ bylaws in Israel to study the degree to which the shift to privately operated DC schemes results in the transfer of risk from capital to labour and in the entrenchment of gender and income inequalities. The article shows that the shift of pension provision from defined benefit (DB) to defined contribution (DC) entails a significant shift of risk from capital to labour. Moreover, separately from the DB to DC shift, moving from public management to private management increases employees’ pension risks. Lastly, the paper shows that the combination of the shifts from DB to DC and from public to private management involves a shift in governance, which exposes pension scheme members to a high likelihood of lower returns as well as to gender and income inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This short note introduces a mini-symposium on the changing nature of relationships at work. The mini-symposium essentially consists of two papers by two distinguished judges who are specialists in labour law--Mr Justice Langstaff from the UK and Justice Walton from Australia. In a revised version of my chairman's introduction to the original lectures given at University College London in April 2015, I present these two judicial authors, I relect briely on the topic of their papers and I welcome the comparative and empirically topical discussion which their two lectures instituted and which the two ensuing articles now continue in written and published form. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores and problematizes the exclusion of workfare participants from the scope of employment legislation, offering an opportunity to revisit the scope of the labour protection. As the UK and the Netherlands have been at the forefront of the European activation turn that catalysed the introduction of workfare programmes in European welfare states, the first part of the paper maps the employment protection of workfare participants in these two countries. In the second part of the paper we critically assess the reasons why employment status or, at least, employment protection regardless of status, is not granted to workfare participants and to other persons who are fulfilling financial non-rewarding (at least for the worker herself) 'work', such as volunteer workers or persons who have been found guilty of an offence and are sentenced to community service. On the basis of our analysis we suggest to expand labour protection to workfare participants, with or without granting them worker status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Trade Union Bill raised major concerns about freedom of association in particular and its compatibility with a number of treaty obligations, including notably, the European Convention on Human Rights, Article 11. Complaints were made to the International Labour Organisation, and the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights considered the Bill. This paper seeks to assess the extent to which such human rights considerations influenced the final text which became the Act. Our view is that, although the government made a number of notable concessions, these were informed more by political than by legal considerations. Despite the concessions, human rights concerns still remain. Our secondary aim in this paper is to consider some factors relevant to the possibility of a successful legal challenge based on those concerns. We think such a challenge unlikely for two reasons. Firstly, the concessions removed many of the substantive provisions most susceptible to a human rights challenge. Secondly, whilst the domestic courts have been reluctant to embrace Convention rights in trade union cases, the Strasbourg Court has recently been notably sympathetic to the British Government in Article 11 cases, carving out for this country an apparently protected position on freedom of association issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unfair dismissal law has been the persistent subject of reform since its inception in Britain and Australia. This paper endeavours to identify the ideas and perceptions that have animated the contestations between traditional and emerging notions of unfair dismissal law producing this reform. In Britain in particular and to a lesser extent in Australia, there has been consideration of a new reform proposal of compensated no fault dismissal which would seek to challenge the normative ideal of industrial justice used to justify traditional unfair dismissal law. The primary arguments being used by proponents of the no fault dismissal proposal pertain to efficiency, simplicity and reducing regulatory burdens upon business. This paper questions whether these arguments provide a sufficient basis for replacing traditional unfair dismissal law with no fault dismissal, arguing that the latter relies upon a commodity conception of work that does not account for benefits other than the economic value which an individual receives from their job. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As employment law changes and develops, in sometimes surprising ways, this paper considers the possibility that employment law may not be keeping pace with the diversity of working patterns and practices which have rapidly evolved in the past few decades. It therefore poses the question whether labour law needs to change direction to accommodate the work and workers of the twenty-first century. It firstly makes and details the point, against a statistical base, that significant change in the labour market is nothing new, but then turns to the identification of quite radical recent and continuing changes, and goes on to ask whether they demand a changing law. It presents four cases to illustrate where the law appears to fall short, expressing unease that a discriminatory wrong can be done without the law being able to address it, and highlights different ways in which the law of contract may not provide an appropriate model to deal with today's problems. The possibility is canvassed that if the expression 'arrangement' were used in place of the contractual model, the concentration might then be on industrial realities rather than legal niceties. In conclusion, it is emphasised that the answers are ones of policy which are critically dependent upon the guiding political philosophy of the time. (The paper was delivered as a lecture as a general election approached.) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews the effectiveness of the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED), based on insights from debates within equality law and theories of regulation. Drawing on examples of its practical implementation, the strengths and weaknesses of the ‘reflexive turn’ in equality law are assessed. While recognising the concerns raised regarding second-generation regulation, such as its inability to address structural power relations, the article proposes that this form of regulation has some merit when applied to equality law. First, the participatory processes that it produces can in themselves be viewed as equality outcomes, particularly when equality is understood to encompass the participation and inclusion of vulnerable groups. Second, this form of regulation can introduce change within organisations, proving reasonably resilient once embedded in standards of good management practice. The paper does not suggest that the processes of the PSED cannot be improved and instead proposes a number of ways in which second-generation regulation can be made more effective. However, it argues that examples of the implementation of the PSED show how reflexive regulation can provide more effective and resilient means to support the realisation of equality and social justice than at first appears. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on pilot study research which sought to explore perceptions and experiences of vulnerable employees who attempted to use the Employment Tribunal (ET) system to resolve disputes. We interviewed clients of a Citizens Advice Bureau seeking to explore the concerns of those for whom the system potentially poses the greatest barriers—those who cannot afford legal advice and/or are not trade union members. We conclude that the ETs, and the mediating role played by Acas, produce barriers to justice for vulnerable employees. Furthermore, the role played by Citizens Advice is critical in reclaiming labour law’s public law function, by which private disputes between individuals are translated into matters of public concern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ‘unorganised’ worker (neither unionised nor covered by a collective agreement) is the norm in Britain, especially in the private sector, which employs about 70% of employees. In 2003, union membership was down to 29.3%, and 18.2% in the private sector. Collective bargaining covers 72.2% of workers in the public sector, but only 22.1% in the private,1 leaving statutory regulation of individual employment rights as the only protection for the majority of workers. In this context, access to these rights, and ease of enforcement, while never previously straightforward, are becoming increasingly crucial. The individualisation of the employment relationship, which began before New Labour returned to power in 1997, has continued with little restoration of collective rights and new legislation enhancing individual rights. The government’s commitment to neo-liberalism and maintaining a ‘flexible’ labour force has ensured that these further rights are circumscribed by new legislation, which places them further out of reach. This paper discusses this process in the context of the difficulties workers already face in obtaining support and guidance, the lack of affordable professional legal advice and representation and the impediments to providing an adequate service by the under-funded voluntary sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this introduction to a special issue on the Trade Union Act 2016 (TUA), we consider the background and context in which the new legislation was enacted and then outline briefly the actual provisions which were in fact adopted after the full parliamentary process had been followed. These were by no means identical to the Government's original proposals and involved political compromise in the build up to the Brexit referendum. As the contributions to this special issue demonstrate, the motivations and justifications behind the reforms were multiple, sometimes unexpressed, and far from straightforward. Here, we review the conclusions reached by the authors, and offer some thoughts of our own regarding the new mechanisms for controlling unions in the TUA. We conclude by suggesting strategies that workers and their organisations might deploy in resisting these controls, while conceding the limitations of these responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers the author's insights on the government report entitled "Fairness at Work," of the Department of Trade and Industry in Great Britain. The author says that the report deals with the future of labour law reform. He states that the report tackles the improvement in European Community (EC) policies implemented in the country. He adds that the report interprets issues subjected for further consultation such as the recognition for trade union employees and collective bargaining.

On the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of ILO Convention No. 87, this article examines the extent to which the UK complies with the standards set by this Convention and its counterpart, Convention No. 98. It is argued that government regulation of industrial relations in the UK breaches ILO standards in at least three respects. Firstly, it places unreasonable constraints on trade union autonomy guaranteed under Article 3 of Convention No. 87; secondly, it does not make sufficient provision for rights to engage in collective bargaining; and finally, it does not make adequate provision for protection of those who organise or participate in industrial action. Against this backdrop, the author assesses whether the proposals contained in the recent government White Paper on Fairness at Work will remedy these defects. It emerges that although the present government has been willing to make certain changes, which respond to criticism from ILO supervisory organs, further reform is necessary if the UK is to satisfy its international obligations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to assess the nature and significance of Lord Wedderburn's contribution to the elaboration of a theory of labour law. Noting the extent to which Wedderburn was influenced, in this respect as in others, by the work of Otto Kahn-Freund, it focuses on the question of whether Wedderburn ever developed a theory of labour law that was clearly distinguishable from Kahn-Freund's. Were there significant differences in the two scholars' expositions of abstentionism, or collective laissez-faire? Through a close reading of Wedderburn's work, it is suggested that Wedderburn was a strong proponent of the principle of collective laissez-fare, in his early as well as his later writing. In the changed political context of the 1980s and 1990s, he undertook the important task of seeking to update or restate the principle as an expression of social-democratic values in the field of work and working relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses gender equality addressed in the Pensions Act 2007 and the Pensions Act 2008 in Great Britain. The White Paper "Security in Retirement: Towards a New Pensions System" provided the reasons women generally received lower pensions compared to men. Section 1 of the Pensions Act 2007 considered the fact that women had to achieve 39 years worth of contributions, less credits for Home Responsibilities Allowance. The reforms contained in the Pension Act 2008 are cited.

Trade unions have a number of functions, some of which have been more prominent than others at different periods in history. But over the course of time trade unions have developed five principal functions. These are respectively: a service function; a representation function; a regulatory function; a government function; and a public administration function. This paper examines these different functions and argues that the balance is shifting, with more emphasis being placed on service, governmental and public administration functions. We are witnessing the emergence of a new ‘supply side trade unionism’ with a corresponding dilution of their representative and regulatory functions. These developments—engineered by governments of both parties in recent years—are assessed in the context of the Warwick agreement in 2004 where the trade unions and the Labour Party concluded a deal on the shape of a possible third term Labour government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers the author's insights regarding the government report entitled "Fairness at Work," of the Department of Trade and Industry in Great Britain. The author states that the report aims to clarify issues related to industrial relations law. He adds that the report affects labour law in terms of the relevance of collective bargaining to employment contract of an individual.

In this article, the author focuses on the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 of Great Britain and also discusses its several provisions regarding work-related injuries. Fatal incidents and disasters during business activity are comprised in a category of unlawful conduct which is usually neglected in the legal system of the country. It also offers information on the White Paper "Company Law Reform," published in the year 1970.

Shared parental leave made some maternity leave transferable in the UK. The aim was to improve the position of working parents, particularly mothers, by encouraging fathers to take on more of a caring role. It has been widely acknowledged that the legislation has failed to achieve this. This article considers whether the reasons for this failure are due to the specifics of the UK's legislative scheme itself or the model of transferable maternity leave. Comparing the experience of other countries with transferable maternity leave shows that solving many of the issues with the UK legislation would not be enough to encourage fathers to care. Instead, such comparison shows that the model of transferable maternity leave can never be the most effective tool to encourage fathers to care because it will always prioritise mothers' caring role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reviews the monthly periodical "Equality Law Reports," which is available in both paper and online formats.

The article considers the documents "Routes to Resolution: Improving Dispute Resolution in Britain" and "Dispute Resolution in Britain," issued by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) in 2001. While the first document analyzes the nature of grievances raised by individuals in their workplace, the second one factored in the structural changes of the economy and composition of the labor market. The response of labor unions to these changes is also mentioned.

The article discusses the changes in the Employment Relations Act 2004 and the judicial interpretation of the legislation in Great Britain since the 1999 amendments. The amendments made by the 2004 Act concern three aspects of the obligations imposed on unions such as the notice requirements in Trade Union and Labor Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 (TULRCA) sections 226A and 234A, entitlement to vote in a ballot and a related issue which has risen in different ways over the years since 1984. The 2005 version of the Code is also discussed.

The article focuses on the review process of the European Works Councils (EWC) Directive with reference to the potential amendments proposed by the interested parties and considers the approach taken by the British government and its views towards the revision of the EWC Directive. The Directive aims to improve the provision of information to employees and their consultation at transnational level. The benefits and difficulties associated with the Directive were highlighted by studies and conferences organised by the social partners and EWCs members.

The article discusses the results of a telephone survey of 1,071 small employers from July-August 2000 in Great Britain. This telephone survey which focused on employment rights in small firms, was commissioned by the Department of Trade and Industry. Several charts are presented which show the impact of employment legislation on small businesses, including owner-managers' awareness and knowledge of Individual Employment Rights (IER), the effects of IERs on small firms, and advice seeking behavior of the employer.

This article argues that the requirement of group disadvantage in indirect belief discrimination is incompatible with the human right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. The latter protects sincerely held beliefs even if they are not shared by others or part of group orthodoxy. Consequently, the group disadvantage requirement in indirect belief discrimination ought to be interpreted away under section 3 HRA. Doing so, it is argued, does not give an unfair advantage to beliefs over other aspects of personal identity and complies with the legal injunction against judicial involvement in theological or philosophical disputes. The article concludes by arguing that, in light of the UK case law, imposing a requirement of group disadvantage is likely to pose a more significant barrier to secular philosophical beliefs than to religious ones. In light of an understanding of secularism that requires equal treatment of religious and deeply held secular beliefs, it is imperative that such a barrier be dispensed with. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides an overview of the content of the Working Time Regulations 1998 in Great Britain and looks at working time and night work as two areas which may present particular difficulties. The Directive applies to workers, including trainees and apprentices. Sectors and activities excluded from the Directive are mentioned. Also discussed are entitlements and limits, enforcement of the Directive, derogations, collective, workforce and relevant agreements, and problem areas.

This article will examine how a right to care could be applied in the UK to better support people's ability to balance their paid work and caring responsibilities. I will argue that this would inject the ethic of care into the body of work–life balance legislation to better value caring relationships and carers. This is important because paid work is currently prioritised in this body of legislation. I will argue that better valuing caring labour is key to achieving transformative changes in both the workplace and the division of caring labour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an analysis on the case of Wood Group Heavy Industrial Turbines Ltd. v. Crossan, which demonstrates the role of the Great Britain Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) in the promotion or inhibition of re-employment. The case involves an employee who was dismissed following allegations that he had used and dealt in drugs at work and for timekeeping and clocking offences. The ruling of EAT is examined.

The article focuses on the Holship case, in the context of British exit (Brexit) from the European Union (EU). Topics discussed include European Economic Area (EEA) and European Free Trade Agreement (EFTA); freedom of movement of workers; and the need to protect the income and jobs of registered dockworkers.

Many EU-8 migrant workers work in low-skilled, low-paid jobs, particularly in sectors such as food processing and agriculture. Our interest lies in the experience of those migrant workers in the UK and specifically what happens when they are denied their employment rights. In earlier work, we have already shown that there was a significant underuse by EU-8 migrant workers of Employment Tribunals (ETs). So the questions for this article are three-fold. First, why do so few EU-8 migrant workers enforce their employment rights before ETs and to what extent do legal, economic, political and cultural landscapes, as they are experienced by migrant workers, constrain or enable enforcement action? Second, if migrant workers do not resort to ETs, what do they do? Do they simply move on, or do they use alternative enforcement mechanisms (such as the Gangmasters' Licensing Authority)? How effective are these other enforcement processes and institutions in protecting the rights of migrant and similarly vulnerable domestic workers? And third, what might be done to improve the enforcement of employment rights for EU-8 migrant workers and for other vulnerable workers on the UK labour market, including non-EU migrants, especially in the light of the new labour market enforcement agency (LMEA)? We argue that the establishment of a Pay and Work Rights Ombudsman might help address some of the problems experienced by EU-8 migrant workers and other vulnerable national workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on provisions of the Trade Union (Wales) Act 2017 and its relationship with two statutes of Great Britain Parliament such as Trade Union Act 2016 and the Wales Act 2017 with labour lawyers and to constitutional lawyers. It mentions constructive ways of engaging with trade unions in public services and amends the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 (TULRCA) in relation to Welsh public services.

Why do shareholders monopolise voting rights in UK companies, and are trade unions the only way to get meaningful workplace representation? In 1967 a Labour Party policy document first coined the phrase that a 'single channel' for representation should 'in the normal' case mean trade unions. Since then, it has been said the labour movement embraced an 'adversarial' rather than a 'constitutional' conception of corporations, neglecting legal rights to worker voice in enterprise governance. This article shows that matters were not so simple. It explains the substantial history of legal rights to vote in British workplaces, and competition from the rival constitutional conception: employee share schemes. The UK has the oldest corporations - namely universities - which have consistently embedded worker participation rights in law. Britain has among the world's most sophisticated 'second channel' participation rights in pension board governance. Developing with collective bargaining, it had the world's first private corporations with legal participation rights. Although major plans in the 1920s for codetermination in rail and coal fell through, it maintained a 'third channel' of worker representatives on boards during the 20th century in numerous sectors, including ports, gas, post, steel, and buses. At different points every major political party had general proposals for votes at work. The narrative of the 'single channel' of workplace representation, and an 'adversarial' conception of the company contains some truth, but there has never been one size of regulation for all forms of enterprise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the decision of Great Britain High Court of Justice in the case ICAP Management Services Limited v (1) Berry (2) BGC Services (Holdings) LLP on provisions of the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) (TUPE) Regulations 2006. It mentions scope of an employee's right to object to a TUPE transfer and principles around the enforcement of garden leave provisions in employment contracts. It also mentions notice to terminate employment on garden leave.

In R (UNISON) v Lord Chancellor (Equality and Human Rights Commission Intervening) the Supreme Court held that fees for bringing claims in the employment tribunal were unlawful both under common law and as a matter of EU law. The judgment has very significant implications for any system in which the enforcement of employment or social rights is left to individual claimants, the paradigmatic model adopted in the UK. Recent government policy has ignored the public function of individual tribunal claims in delivering employment rights at the systemic level, exemplified by the theoretical assumptions and justifications which lay behind the introduction of fees. The Supreme Court's analysis of the rule of law and the common law right of access to justice is in sharp conflict with these policies. I discuss the difference between the common law principles and the parallel principles in EU law and under Article 6 of the ECHR. The article explores the consequences of the judgment for cases rejected, dismissed or not brought owing to fees, and its longer-term implications for impediments to access to courts and tribunals, all the more important with Brexit on the horizon. The judgment represents an important triumph of the rule of law over the increased marketisation of legal rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many labour law scholars in the UK are disillusioned with recent judicial decisions by the House of Lords and Supreme Court on the contract of employment. The argument made in this article is that, although there are good reasons for disillusionment with the Johnson v Unisys progeny, there have nevertheless been potentially some very positive developments for employees in recent decisions. On procedural fairness, the High Court has read in principles of 'natural justice' to the employment contract, whereas both High Court and Court of Appeal decisions seem to see courts intervening, at least in some areas, in the employment relation also on the grounds of substantive fairness. It is suggested here that these recent cases are evidence of a nascent duty of 'fairness' in the contract of employment, and the case is made for explicit recognition of, and development of, this duty. A practical application is provided, to finish, with the topical phenomenon of so-called 'zero hours contracts'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are many different situations in which the law requires a determination of whether an individual can be said to be 'working': to determine his or her status as an 'employee' or 'worker', to decide his or her entitlement to contractual pay, to assess his or her entitlement to the National Minimum Wage and to distinguish working time from 'rest periods' for the purposes of working time legislation. Where the individual is engaged in core work tasks at the workplace, it is straightforward to say that he or she is 'working'. However, it will be argued in this article that there is a significant problem of 'availability': where workers are not actively engaged in core work tasks at the workplace, but are not fully at liberty either. This might be because they are waiting to be offered work or 'on call' in case of emergencies, for example. This 'available' time is often not recognised by the law as 'work', with the result that the workers in question may miss out on pay, employment rights and proper rest breaks. The article maps the problem of 'availability', arguing that it strikes at the heart of how labour lawyers think about employment relationships, and suggests an alternative analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The answer to the question of whether a partner can also simultaneously be an employee of his partnership has long been considered to be settled law. However, the introduction of limited liability partnerships (LLPs) in 2001 has not only raised the new question of whether LLP members can also be employees but has, in doing so, reopened the question of the employment status of partners, questions which now need to be viewed in the context of the widespread practice of having both equity and other types of partner/member. Furthermore, with much legislation now giving rights to 'workers' rather than employees, the question has arisen of whether LLP members or partners can also simultaneously be workers, regardless of whether they can also be employees. The answers to these questions go to the very heart of what the law regards as an employer-employee or firm-worker relationship, yet recent legislation and jurisprudence have failed to clarify the legal position. This article explores the employee and worker status of partners and LLP members, and the consequences both for them and for the development of the law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses Chandhok v Tirkey case addressing discrimination on grounds of caste. In this case claimant a domestic worker claimed that respondents treated her badly and in a demeaning manner and that this was in part because of her low status which was infected with considerations of caste. The respondents applied to strike out this amendment, on the ground that caste did not fall within the definition of race of the Equality Act 2010. Court dismissed the appeal.

The right to request for flexible working legislation (sections 80F-80I, Employment Rights Act 1996) attempts to reconcile the demands of employees' jobs with those in their personal lives. It does this by detailing a procedure whereby employees can request an adjustment to the amount of time spent working and the timing of those hours. The duration of work time and the timing of work time are indeed critical factors in employees' ability to manage their work and personal lives. But it is questionable whether these purely quantitative features of work time capture the temporal issues that feed into the work-personal life problem. This article reviews the temporal assumptions implicit in the flexible working legislation and critically evaluates them in light of broader theoretical perspectives on time. In particular, it highlights the role of temporal subjectivities, which employees develop at work, and the relationship of these to new emerging patterns of work. A case study focusing on software engineers and managers is presented to demonstrate these theoretical viewpoints in practice. The article concludes that the legislation's failure to address the social and collective nature of time is problematic, and that this hinders real progress in achieving flexible working. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bob Simpson has documented the evolution of collective labour laws in the UK over several decades and his scholarship reminds us of their intended and unintended consequences. In the highly politically charged context of the 2016 Brexit vote, this article considers how UK and European Union (EU) laws have shaped the nature and scope of collective bargaining in the UK and, thereby, income differentials and equal treatment in the workplace. While it would be possible to provide for equality of treatment between local British and migrant labour in ways that reduce social tensions, instead we have witnessed the imposition of legal frameworks that place workers in a position of competition rather than solidarity. The mistrust of current forms of migration from the EU seems to have been one key part of the journey towards the Brexit vote. An important question is what comes afterwards. If Brexit does not proceed, we should be contemplating reform at both UK and EU levels; but the problems identified here seem unlikely to evaporate in the event of either ‘soft’ or ‘hard’ Brexit. The article concludes that the UK situation offers a salutary reminder to other EU States of the dangers of dismantling systems of sectoral bargaining and mechanisms for extension of collective agreements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to focus on a very topical aspect of labour/employment law, namely that of its personal or relational scope, which is usually regarded as an individual one, but which we argue has a significant and largely neglected collective dimension. A first introductory section proposes a normative framework for this inquiry, arguing for a more inclusive approach to relational scope where collective labour rights are engaged and finding a basis for this approach in ILO Recommendation No 198. A second section demonstrates the way in which the relevant jurisprudence of UK labour/employment law has seemed to be out of accord with that normative approach. A third section demonstrates how the case law of the ECJ and CJEU has also in its own way been unsympathetic to claims that self-employed workers should be brought within the fold of collective labour law, particularly with regard to collective bargaining. A fourth section further develops a supranational perspective upon these arguments, concentrating on arguments and pronouncements emanating from the European Committee for Social Rights. A fifth section considers ways in which novel scenarios of differentiation between ‘labour’ and ‘capital’ are presenting themselves in the context of the so-called ‘gig economy’, focusing on the very recent UK Employment Tribunal decision in the Uber case. A sixth concluding section expresses the hope that the article has opened up a largely untrodden path towards an authentically collective view of the debate about the personal scope of labour/employment law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Trade Union Act 2016 contains further changes to the role of the Certification Officer (CO) following the changes introduced by the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014 which gave supervisory, investigative and enforcement powers over new membership record requirements designed to assist with legal challenges to industrial action. The enhanced powers of investigation and the ability to exercise powers without receiving a complaint from a trade union member are now applied across much of the CO's jurisdiction. To these are added additional enforcement powers and the power to impose financial penalties, with the Secretary of State having power to make provision for the CO to impose a levy on trade unions. The role of the CO, now described by the Government as that of a 'regulator', is politicised to an unprecedented degree and is transformed into that of instigator, investigator, prosecutor, adjudicator and sentencer. Unlike even the measures introduced by Conservative governments from 1980 to 1997, the provisions fail to take account of the protection of trade union autonomy in international law. Having already optimised the opportunities for legal challenges to industrial action, these measures are designed to heap unwarranted administrative burdens and expense on trade unions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the provisions of the British Immigration Act 2016 aimed to govern labour market and illegal working in the country.

The Trade Union Act 2016 marks a historically significant realignment in the ideological politics of trade union regulation. It represents a more authoritarian style of Conservative ideology and statecraft in the sphere of trade union regulation, and this is reflected in three main characteristics: (i) a repressive strategy of de-democratisation, undermining political resistance and stifling dissent in the democratic process; (ii) heavier reliance on direct State coercion, including the techniques of criminalisation, alongside the empowerment of employers to use civil law remedies against trade unions and workers in industrial action situations; and (iii) the elevation of social order in the regulation of strike activity. The article then considers the likely prospects of the legislation, and the wider ideological significance of this turn towards authoritarianism for Conservative political thought 'beyond neo-liberalism'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our aim in this article is to analyse the provisions of the Trade Union Act 2016 that deal with pre-strike ballots and picketing. We also consider Government proposals to legislate in respect of protests associated with industrial action ('leverage action'), which were abandoned in favour of plans to amend the Code of Practice on Picketing. We note the suggestion made by several commentators and Opposition politicians that the Government might have intended with these changes to make it significantly more difficult for trade unions and workers to exercise their rights to take industrial action, and to engage in forms of protest associated with industrial action. Examining the stated policy aims of Government, and available evidence which speaks to those policy aims and to the likely impact of the new rules, we argue that the freedom of workers and trade unions to participate in and organise industrial action has indeed been narrowed very considerably by this Act; further, that the case for amending the existing legal framework was not at all well made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the impact of Trade Union Act 2015–16 of Great Britain on trade unions and protect essential public services against strikes and proposed changes to thresholds for industrial action in strike ballots. It mentions that Code on picketing to protests linked to industrial action which may encompass the use of social media. It also mentions that potential consequences of the inclusion of measures on unions' use of social media in the Code of Practice.

The abolition of the UK default retirement age (DRA) poses particular challenges for universities. However, it is still unclear how UK universities will respond to this change. To investigate these issues, this article considers theoretical perspectives regarding how organisations respond to change, with a particular focus on relexive law. It then compares this literature with the results of comparative organisational case studies undertaken with six Australian universities in November 2013. Drawing on comparative analysis of labour laws in Australia and the UK, it considers the extent to which these responses may inform the future reactions of UK universities to the abolition of the DRA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on labor unions of Great Britain being forced to work outside the law. Topics include the phrase so far as may be lawful being removed from the rules of trade union Unite, the right to strike being restricted for labor unions by John Major, former prime minister of Great Britain, in 1992, criminalisation of labor union activities by the Conservative Party of Great Britain and protection from dismissal and employment tribunals under labor laws being sabotaged by politicians.