Labour Law (Cambridge)

Citation

Collins, H., Ewing, K. D., & McColgan, A. (2012). Labour Law. Cambridge University Press. Law in Context series.

Chapter Summary

The book has twenty chapters in five parts, about 920 pages in all. The Preface says the chapters correspond roughly to a full-year course, that each is largely self-contained, and that most include short vignettes drawn from the news to prompt discussion. Collins wrote Chapters 1, 3–7, 10, 11 and 18–20, Ewing Chapters 2, 8 and 12–17, and McColgan Chapter 9 on equality.

Part I: Introduction

Chapter 1, Nature and Sources of Labour Law. The chapter asks what labour law is for and starts from Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: fair access to work, safe and dignified conditions, adequate pay, job security, and the freedom to form trade unions. It then looks at the legal sources and the different ways in which the subject can be studied.

Chapter 2, Globalisation and Labour Law. The chapter opens with a school blazer whose production crosses several countries and uses it to introduce the problem of regulating work when capital, goods and labour move across borders.

Part II: The Contract of Employment

Chapter 3, Terms of the Contract of Employment. The chapter begins with the historical shift to the contract of service, as against the contract for services, as the legal frame for paid work, and goes on to the sources and content of the terms of employment.

Chapter 4, Authority and Co-operation. The chapter treats the employment relation as a structure of managerial authority and implied obedience, in Kahn-Freund's terms a condition of subordination, and considers how the law qualifies it through duties of co-operation.

Chapter 5, Flexibility and Precarious Work. Starting from the rigidity of ordinary contract law, the chapter discusses the kinds of flexibility employers seek and the legal treatment of precarious and atypical work.

Chapter 6, The Personal Scope of Labour Law. The chapter addresses who is protected: how legislation distinguishes employment from business relations, and where the boundaries fall for workers and the self-employed.

Part III: Statutory Regulation of the Employment Relationship

Chapter 7, Wages. The chapter starts from the wage/work bargain and mutuality of obligation, then turns to the regulation of pay.

Chapter 8, Working Time. The chapter explains the Working Time Directive and the Working Time Regulations 1998 against the earlier tradition of sectoral hours legislation and collective agreements.

Chapter 9, Equality. The chapter is devoted to the Equality Act 2010 and the series of discrimination statutes it replaced.

Chapter 10, Work/Life Balance. The chapter deals with the legal response to the conflict between paid work and family care.

Chapter 11, Civil Liberties at Work. The chapter examines the Human Rights Act 1998 in the workplace, with privacy (Article 8), religion (Article 9), and freedom of expression including whistleblowing (Article 10).

Part IV: Collective Labour Rights

Chapters 12 and 13, Freedom of Association and the Right to Organise; Freedom of Association and Trade Union Autonomy. The first deals with the right to join and take part in a trade union and protection against sanctions by state or employer. The second deals with the union's freedom to run its own affairs, drawing on ILO Convention 87, Article 3.

Chapter 14, The Right to Bargain Collectively. The chapter considers the legal machinery for collective bargaining and the role of the state in it.

Chapter 15, The Right to Be Informed and Consulted. The chapter covers the information and consultation rights introduced through European law, from redundancy consultation to European Works Councils.

Chapters 16 and 17, Collective Action and the Right to Strike; Liability for Collective Action. The first sets out legal responses to strikes and other industrial action. The second turns to employers' remedies, such as injunctions, and the liability of unions and organisers.

Part V: Termination of Employment

Chapter 18, Wrongful Dismissal. The chapter treats dismissal as the legal control on the employer's disciplinary power and covers the common-law claim.

Chapter 19, Unfair Dismissal. The chapter covers the statutory claim, in force since 1971, decided by an employment tribunal, with reinstatement or compensation as remedies.

Chapter 20, Economic Dismissal. The chapter covers employee protection when a business is restructured, sold or insolvent, including redundancy.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–6: Foundations and the Contract

• Aims of labour law: the book measures the subject against goals such as fair pay, safe conditions, job security and the freedom to organise.
• Contract of service and contract for services: the distinction between employment and independent work on which the statutory rights depend.
• Subordination: the idea, taken from Kahn-Freund, that the employment contract conceals a relation of command and obedience.
• Personal scope: the rules deciding who counts as an employee or worker for the purposes of protection.

Chapters 7–11: Statutory Regulation

• Mutuality of obligation: the exchange of a promise to work for a promise of pay as a core element of the contract.
• Working Time Regulations 1998: the implementation of the Working Time Directive in Great Britain.
• Equality Act 2010: the single statute that consolidated earlier discrimination law.
• Convention rights at work: the use of the Human Rights Act 1998 to protect privacy, belief and expression.

Chapters 12–17: Collective Labour Law

• Trade union autonomy: the principle that unions run their own affairs, with limited state supervision.
• Collective bargaining: negotiation of collective agreements covering pay, hours and procedures.
• Information and consultation: employer duties, mainly from EU law, to inform and consult workers' representatives.
• Industrial action: the legal framework for strikes and the remedies employers have against them.

Chapters 18–20: Termination

• Unfair dismissal: the statutory claim that reviews the reason and manner of dismissal.
• Economic dismissal: the rules on redundancy, business transfer and insolvency.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Covers the whole field in one design. The individual law (contract, statute, dismissal) and the collective law (organisation, bargaining, consultation, industrial action) are given roughly equal space, which suits a full-year course. The Preface presents each chapter as largely self-contained, so shorter courses can select parts.
• Critical in the Law in Context tradition. According to the Preface, the book offers criticism of the law from different perspectives and disciplines, not only exposition. The chapter openings use history, international instruments and news examples, such as the British Airways cabin crew dispute, to set the law in its setting.
• Reception. The publisher quotes Nicola Countouris (University College London) calling it a research-led teaching manual, and Jessica Guth (Bradford) finding it comprehensive and accessible for students and teachers.

Limitations

• Length and density. At over 900 pages it is a full reference text. A student who needs only the main outline of employment rights will find a shorter textbook easier to use.
• Dated by its edition. The book appeared in 2012, before later legislative reform and the United Kingdom's departure from the European Union, so the parts built on EU directives (working time, consultation, transfers) need checking against current law.
• Tied to British law. The statutes and cases treated are those of Great Britain, with European and international instruments as context, so the book is of limited use for comparative or non-UK study.

Where It Fits in the Course

Within this course list, Collins, Ewing and McColgan is a full-scale textbook for a complete course in labour law. A student with no legal background might begin with Taylor and Emir's Employment Law: An Introduction, which explains legal sources and institutions from the start and links the rules to workplace practice. Deakin and Morris's Labour Law is the nearest comparison: also a comprehensive treatment of individual and collective law, with sections on the sources and institutions of labour law and on the history of the subject. Smith and Wood's Employment Law is a detailed statute-and-case account that assumes an introductory course.

Two further books go beyond the textbook role. Anne Davies's Perspectives on Labour Law approaches the subject through historical, economic and human rights perspectives. Freedland and Kountouris's The Legal Construction of Personal Work Relations is a research monograph that develops the argument about employment status touched on here in Chapters 3 and 6; it is best read after this book or a comparable course.

How to Use This Book

The book suits undergraduate law students and others on a labour or employment law module. No prior knowledge of labour law is assumed, but an understanding of contract law and of the structure of the English courts will help.

A suggested route for a one-semester course:

• Core: Chapters 3, 6, 7, 9, 12, 14, 16 and 19, which cover the contract, employment status, pay, equality, union rights, bargaining, industrial action and unfair dismissal.
• Framing: Chapters 1 and 2 give the aims of the subject and the global setting; they can be read first or revisited once the detail is familiar.
• Selective: Chapters 4, 5, 8, 10, 11, 13, 15, 17, 18 and 20 can follow the syllabus. Chapters 16 and 17 belong together, as do 12 and 13, and 18 to 20 form the dismissal sequence.

Use the chapter introductions and conclusions to keep the argument in view, and read the statutes and cases cited in the tables at the front of the book in the original. Because the text is from 2012, pair each statutory chapter with the current legislation and recent case law.