The employment relation is normally understood as a contract of employment. The employer, as usually the stronger bargaining partner, is free to determine the parties’ obligations through fixing the express terms of the contract. Regulation requires the employer to disclose those terms in writing. There is no legal control over unfair terms. However, collective agreements with a recognised trade union often fix the principal express terms of the contract.

Large corporations, trade unions and labour law now function within a global economy, creating the need to develop effective international labour standards addressed both to governments and corporations, which are now expected to take greater responsibility for labour standards throughout their global operations. This chapter examines the international legal framework for labour law within which domestic law operates, and the more recent initiatives focused specifically on corporations, as well as questions of exploitation associated with growing labour mobility, before concluding with a discussion about the prospects for global labour law.

Chapter 1 introduces the main issues raised in Labour Law and its social and economic significance in regulating workplace relations. The chapter introduces the principal sources of labour law in the UK, which include statutes, the common law and European law and the difficulties in securing compliance by employers with those laws. It describes the system of employment tribunals and ordinary courts where disputes are resolved. Finally the chapter introduces some contemporary themes concerning precarious work, work/life balance and human rights at work.

Trade unions play a critical role in labour law, in representing workers, negotiating terms and conditions of employment by collective bargaining, lobbying for stronger legislation to improve working conditions and enhance job security, and assisting in the enforcement of legal rights before courts and tribunals. Employers are often hostile to trade unions, and workers need legal protection from the consequences of such hostility. In this Chapter we consider the legislation designed to protect workers from exclusion, blacklisting, discrimination, and victimization because of their trade union membership and activities. We also examine the right not to be a trade union member, as well as the purpose and implications of such a right.T

The common law permits employers to fix the wages payable under the contract of employment and also upholds a broad principle of no work–no pay. Statute protects employees against deductions from their wages that are not authorised by the terms of their contract. Subject to the express terms of the contract, in some circumstances employers may be under a duty to provide work so that employees can earn a living. These rules embrace a principle of mutuality that protects the expectation of the employer that work will be performed and of the employee that work will be remunerated. The National Minimum Wage sets a floor on wages for all workers. The chapter describes the method of assessing whether the minimum wage is paid in various kinds of jobs. It concludes by assessing the various types of enforcement mechanisms, including HMRC inspectors, penalties and civil claims, and assesses the effectiveness of the law.

One of the key functions of trade unions is to engage with employers or groups of employers to regulate terms and conditions of employment by collective bargaining. In the United Kingdom, the state historically played a key role in promoting and sustaining collective bargaining procedures on a sector-wide basis. There has since been a decentralization of collective bargaining activity to enterprise level, a process encouraged by the state, giving employers more control and flexibility over working conditions. This chapter examines the statutory procedures that were introduced in 1999 to support trade unions seeking to establish collective bargaining arrangements at enterprise level, and considers the statutory rights which exist to support collective bargaining, whether secured by voluntary or statutory means. Addressing specifically employer union-avoidance techniques, the analysis concludes by assessing the marginal impact of the law in practice, and considers proposals for reform.

Britons and British subjects with family members deeply involved in the transatlantic economy were an important feature of University life. These students, who grew in number due the increasing profits of the slave economy and the underdeveloped state of tertiary education in the colonies, were accepted and nurtured by fellows and masters who, in many cases, owned plantations, held investments in the slave trade, or had family members serving as governors in the North American colonies. In following the experiences of these students, the chapter details the lives and struggles of undergraduates, particularly those who traveled abroad to Cambridge, and the emotional and personal bonds that fellows and their young charges developed. The chapter is a reminder that, when considering institutional connections to enslavement, political economy was but one side of the story – the emotional, social, and cultural bonds between the sons of enslavers and their fellow Britons were also integral.

The end of the American Revolution energised concerns about the political, economic, and moral state of an empire that had become inextricable from the plantation economy and the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved Africans. Intent on forging an empire without slave-trading, some Cambridge students and fellows took a leading role in attacking the slave economy, enslavers, and the consumption and production of goods tied to the plantation economy. Other past and present Cambridge fellows, however, were emboldened by defeat in the Revolution to support enslavers, arguing that enslavement was the principal foundation of Britain’s rapidly growing economy and should remain entrenched in the British Caribbean. The problem of the slave trade was particularly evident in Britons’ engagement with West Africa, where antislavery activists, colonisers, and explorers had to negotiate and collaborate with local slave-traders and imperial companies to achieve their aims. These conflicts reveal the challenges and limitations of idealism when confronted with the realities of Britain’s slave empire.