Category Archives: Employment and Labour Law
Sandra Sperino, ‘The Emerging Statutory Proximate Cause Doctrine’
ABSTRACT The year 2011 marked the birth of a new idea. The United States Supreme Court decided Staub v Proctor Hospital and for the first time invoked common law proximate cause in the context of federal employment discrimination law. It is rare in jurisprudence to be present at the birth of an idea and then […]
Langenkamp, Costa and Cheung, ‘Hiring Fairly in the Age of Algorithms’
ABSTRACT Widespread developments in automation have reduced the need for human input. However, despite the increased power of machine learning, in many contexts these programs make decisions that are problematic. Biases within data and opaque models have amplified human prejudices, giving rise to such tools as Amazon’s (now defunct) experimental hiring algorithm, which was found […]
Maria Edith Lindholm Gausdal, ‘Breaching the Interpretative Wall between Private and Public Commercial Contracts: Scandinavian Case Law on Fundamental Labour Standard Clauses in Public Contracts’
ABSTRACT From a purely contractual perspective, this article reflects upon labour standard clauses with the objective to ensure that the fundamental ILO conventions and the International Bill of Human Rights are complied with throughout global value chains in respectively business-to-business (private), and public commercial contracts. The clauses are in both settings based widely on the […]
‘Ulla Liukkunen on Employment and Private International Law’
“The volume ‘Employment and Private International Law’, edited by Ulla Liukkunen, has been published in the Private International Law Series (series editor: Symeon C Symeonides) of Edward Elgar Publishing in December 2020. This edited collection gathers together a set of articles that address labour law and labour protection issues that are central to understanding the […]
Ewing and Hendy, ‘Covid-19 and the Failure of Labour Law: Part 1’
ABSTRACT In this article, we consider how Covid-19 revealed the extent to which, in Britain, the core functions of labour law have been compromised by successive governments stretching back to the 1980s and how workers collectively have been failed as a result by a discipline intended ostensibly in their interests. We seek to measure these […]
‘Hidden Harsh Termination Clause Voids Contract’
“In Battiston v Microsoft Canada Inc (‘Microsoft‘), an employee was wrongfully dismissed because his employer had failed to bring a harsh termination clause to his attention. The Ontario Superior Court of Justice’s decision in Microsoft resulted from a combination of the fact that the clause was relatively harsh as well as the fact that the […]
Emily Rose, ‘Reinterpreting Law’s Silence: Examining the Interconnections between Legal Doctrine and the Rise of Immaterial Labour’
ABSTRACT Recent years have seen a rise in immaterial labour in the United Kingdom and other developed economies. Sociological explanatory accounts of these developments focus primarily on economic drivers. Little, if any, inquiry has been made into the potential role of law. This article seeks to identify the aspects of law that may be constitutive […]
Philippe Kuhn, ‘Negotiating Damages after One Step: Employment Team Move and Misuse of Confidential Information Cases’
ABSTRACT This article addresses monetary remedies in employment team move and misuse of confidential information cases. It argues that, after the Supreme Court’s decision in One Step (Support) Ltd v Morris-Garner, negotiating (previously Wrotham Park) damages offer a useful additional compensatory tool in misuse of confidential information cases. They can help overcome some of the […]
Adams and Ruse-Khan, ‘Work and works on digital platforms in capitalism: conceptual and regulatory challenges for labour and copyright law’
ABSTRACT This article explores the challenges associated with creative work in the digital economy at both a conceptual and practical level, through the conjoined lenses of labour law and copyright law. We begin by developing a conception of the capitalist work relation and the distinct struggles intrinsic to it. This allows us to better understand […]
Desmond Ryan, ‘Restating Restraint of Trade: The Implications of the Supreme Court’s Judgment in Tillman v Egon Zehnder Ltd’
INTRODUCTION In its landmark judgment in Tillman v Egon Zehnder Ltd, the UK Supreme Court has delivered detailed guidance on the law relating to the enforceability of restrictive covenants in employment contracts. This is the first judgment on this subject in the history of the Court, and indeed in the history of the judgments of […]