Category Archives: Employment and Labour Law
‘Open consultation: Make Work Pay: misuse of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs)’
The government has introduced a measure through the Employment Rights Act 2025 which voids any provision in an agreement (such as a contract of employment or settlement agreement) between a worker and their employer that prevents a worker from speaking out about relevant harassment or discrimination. This consultation is seeking views on proposals regarding: (i) the […]
Marc Moore, ‘Contract interpretation and the employment relation: from commercial to industrial common sense?’
ABSTRACT The recent (2024) Supreme Court decision in Tesco Stores Ltd v Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers has attracted interest from across the legal community. For labour lawyers, the case provides a valuable opportunity to interrogate the legality of the controversial ‘fire and rehire’ practices that have become a constant of the industrial […]
Jo Helme, ‘Do Unpaid Internships Breach Equality Law?’
ABSTRACT One of the pervasive legal questions surrounding unpaid internships is whether they are compliant with equality law. This speculation, however, has not yet faced judicial determination. This article analyses the merits of such a claim, focusing specifically on whether the EU recommendation that permits unpaid internships can be regarded as ‘invalid’ for discriminating based […]
Hatim Rahman, ‘The Invisible Cage: Workers’ Reactivity to Opaque Algorithmic Evaluations’
ABSTRACT Existing research has shown that people experience third-party evaluations as a form of control because they try to align their behavior with evaluations’ criteria to secure more favorable resources, recognition, and opportunities from external audiences. Much of this research has focused on evaluations with transparent criteria, but increasingly, algorithmic evaluation systems are not transparent. […]
Frances Hamilton, ‘The Formation, Progress and Legacy of the Committee on the Employment of Married Women in the 1920s’
ABSTRACT Marriage bars were re-established by many employers following the end of the First World War. The 1919 Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act proved to be of no assistance as a restrictive interpretation meant that it did not prevent gender discrimination. Contemporaneous materials suggested that the re-imposition of marriage bars was meekly accepted by women. Other […]
Arnow-Richman and Verkerke, ‘Defusing Disclaimers’
ABSTRACT This Article tackles the ubiquitous problem of employer-drafted ‘disclaimers’. Disclaimers are standardized provisions, found in a variety of human resources documents, that confirm employees’ at-will status. They typically preserve employers’ right to change the terms of employment at any time, sometimes without advance notice. The most careful disclaimers also renounce the legal significance of […]
Allen and Krever, ‘Who is an Employee? The Unfortunate Tax and Superannuation Legacy of a Transplanted Category’
ABSTRACT In the absence of statutory definitions of terms used in modern statutes, common law judges will rely on longstanding meanings imported from long-established areas of common law, a phenomenon known as transplanted categories. A notable example in Commonwealth income tax and superannuation legislation is the transplantation of the common law definition of an employee […]
Simon Auerbach, ‘Sir Patrick Elias on Causation’
ABSTRACT This article considers the contribution of Sir Patrick Elias to our understanding of causation in labour law. For these purposes, the concept of causation is considered in its wide sense, embracing issues which arise in claims of both unfair dismissal and discrimination, and at both liability and remedy stages. Sir Patrick’s judicial decisions include […]
Douglas Brodie, ‘Oppressive Employment by Another Route: Franchise and Abuse of Power’
ABSTRACT The contract of franchise has received a surprising lack of attention in the UK courts. The decision in Ellis v John Benson [2025] EWHC 2096, where a franchisee was successful in establishing that the contract with the franchisor contained an implied obligation of good faith, is therefore of particular note. The decision is likely […]
Adrián Todolí-Signes, ‘Labour Law and Economic Policy’
ABSTRACT This book studies labour institutions from an economic perspective to justify their existence and the advantages that they bring to innovation, efficiency, productivity and economic growth. The philosophical foundations of labour law rely on the protection of the weaker party of the employment contract. However, after 40 years of political neoliberalism, these justifications seem […]