The Personal Employment Contract

This book is an analytical study of the current English law of traditional contracts of employment and of other personal employment contracts. Concentrating on the common law basis of individual employment law, it takes full account of relevant British and European Community legislation up to and including the Employment Act 2002, and considers the impact of the Human Rights Act 1998 and of the developing law of human and social rights more generally. In this work the author has up-dated and built upon his earlier treatise on the Contract of Employment published in 1975. The present work takes account of the very considerable amount of case-law, legislation and legal writing which has affected the law of the contract of employment since the earlier treatise was written. However, the present work aims to do more than providing a second edition of The Contract of Employment. It addresses a wider range of employment relationships than the previous work did; in fact, it argues for and is constructed around a whole new category of employment contracts, which includes not only contracts of employment but also other personal employment contracts", a concept which the author articulates and justifies. Within that novel conceptual framework, many of the major features of the law of employment contracts are re-examined and presented in unfamiliar and challenging terms. Thus, the employer is re-conceptualized as the "employing enterprise", the bilateral structure ofemployment contracts is re-evaluated, and new explanations are advanced for the functioning of the law of termination of employment contracts and of remedies for wrongful termination."

This analytical study of the English law of traditional contracts of employment and of other personal employment contracts concentrates on the common law basis of individual employment law.--Résumé de l'éditeur.

"The Contract of Employment provides the most ambitious and comprehensive treatise on the theoretical and doctrinal aspects of the English contract of employment in the common law world. Under the general editorship of Professor Mark Freedland, the text has been produced by a team of world leading experts in employment law. Part I examines the theoretical context to the contract of employment, studying its structure and development from a wide variety of theoretical and comparative perspectives. Part II provides an exposition and analysis of the doctrinal aspects of the contract of employment." --Publisher's website.

This analytical book examines how the common law of the employment contract is likely to evolve. Tracing the radical evolution of this area over the last 40 years, it explores how many of the changes in common law have been triggered by the judicial ‘discovery’ of the key attributes of the relationship. The author concludes that these key attributes of the contract, including the imbalance of power between employee and employer, are likely to remain the key driver for change.

The Employment Contract: Legal Principles, Drafting, and Interpretation provides a detailed analysis of the content of the employment contract. It explains the way in which the general principles of contract law operate in respect of the employment contract, discusses the significance ofimplied terms in interpreting the employment contract, and includes guidance on the drafting of effective employment contracts. Offering a balance between a reliable guide to the current law and an analysis of how the employment contract might develop, the book will be of equal interest to thepractitioner and the academic.

All over the world countries face the challenge of inadequate social security coverage for workers without an employment contact. In countries of the global south, this phenomenon is a natural consequence of large informal economies. Countries in the global north increasingly witness the same issue, due to growing labour market flexibility (flex contracts, dependent self-employment, digitization of labour). In this book authors from both hemispheres exchange insights, experiments and practices with the intention of finding better ways to deal with the social security challenges facing workers.

This book explores the conceptual framework of European employment law, focusing on understanding the law's construction of employment relationships. The book draws on extensive comparative research of the legal architecture of employment relations in national legal systems and EU law to analyse the traditional model of the contract of employment and the difficulties of using the traditional model to frame modern working relationships. The authors then present a new model of the foundations of employment relationships, based on the concept of a personal work nexus, and explore the potential of their model to shape the future development of employment law. Throughout the book, the authors analyse the interaction of domestic and EU employment law, and discuss the possibility of future legal harmonisation in the area. They conclude by exploring the potential for a common framework for European employment law, in the context of broader debates surrounding the harmonisation of European private law.