Documents Dukes, Ruth 13 results

"As a contribution to the debate on the possibility of an end to single-channel worker representation in the UK, this paper seeks to explain the persistence of single-channel representation in Britain throughout the twentieth century. It explores the meaning of the term ‘single channel' generally, and in the British context, and examines the possibility of a causal relationship between the voluntarist approach to the regulation of industrial relations and the persistence of single-channel representation. The focus of the paper is on the Second World War and its aftermath, and the decision of the post-war government not to legislate to institute workplace representation across the board."

"By exploring different approaches to the study of labour law, this book re-evaluates how it is conceived, analysed, and criticized in current legislation and policy. In particular, it assesses whether so-called 'old ways' of thinking about the subject, such as the idea of the labour constitution, developed by Hugo Sinzheimer in the early years of the Weimar Republic, and the principle of collective laissez-faire, elaborated by Otto Kahn-Freund in the 1950s, are in fact outdated. It asks whether, and how, these ideas could be abstracted from the political, economic, and social contexts within which they were developed so that they might still usefully be applied to the study of labour law.

Dukes argues that the labour constitution can provide an 'enduring idea of labour law', and an alternative to modern arguments which favour reorienting labour law to align more closely with the functioning of labour markets. Unlike the 'law of the labour market', the labour constitution highlights the inherently political nature of labour laws and institutions, as well as their economic functions. It constructs a framework for analysing labour laws, labour markets, and institutions, to allow scholars to critique the current policy climate and, in light of the ongoing expansion of the global labour market, assess the impact of the narrowing and disappearance of spaces for democratic deliberation and democratic decision-making on workers' rights."

'Through a case study of the UK hospitality and catering sector, this article explores the limits of employment law as a means of protecting workers from ill or unfair treatment. Finding microbreaches of the law to be common practice in the sector—akin to industry norms or ‘custom and practice'—it considers the routinisation of these microbreaches as an instance of conflict between formal legal rules and social norms. The conflict is problematic because it means that workers are less likely to perceive breach of their legal rights as an injustice worthy of challenge. The industry norms observed have been formed under the influence of an asymmetrical distribution of information and power, including organisational control over the labour process. If employment law is to be made effective, a realignment of legal rules with social norms is needed and, at the same time, the correction of this asymmetry."

"This article addresses the question of what strategic litigation means for workers and trade unions. Drawing on the existing literature and on a series of semi-structured interviews with union officials, lawyers with experience in representing them and other actors from across the labour movement, it explores how U.K. trade unions and actors within them understand and experience strategic litigation and legal mobilisation, what they seek to achieve, and what has been effective and ineffective for them. Uncovering both differences and commonalities between different unions, it suggests that the decision to devote union resources to – usually very costly – litigation is never taken lightly. Trade union approaches to strategic litigation involve neither a straightforward embrace of it nor an outright scepticism regarding its potential."

This work is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

"The right to strike is fundamental to the development and maintenance of democratic forms of government. In struggles to construct and defend democratic regimes, strikes, including general strikes, are often an important weapon. In established democracies, the right to strike can aid the spread of democratic decision-making in workplaces and the wider economy, serving indirectly to strengthen participation and confidence in political processes and institutions. And it can underpin systems of collective bargaining that function to narrow income and wealth inequalities, in a manner that is conducive, if not necessary, to the maintenance of democratic government. Wherever the right to strike is restricted, undermined and made more difficult to exercise, so too is the capacity of ordinary citizens decreased to defend, maintain and extend democratic values, practices and institutions."

This work is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

"Our aim in this article is to analyse the provisions of the Trade Union Act 2016 that deal with pre-strike ballots and picketing. We also consider Government proposals to legislate in respect of protests associated with industrial action (‘leverage action'), which were abandoned in favour of plans to amend the Code of Practice on Picketing. We note the suggestion made by several commentators and Opposition politicians that the Government might have intended with these changes to make it significantly more difficult for trade unions and workers to exercise their rights to take industrial action, and to engage in forms of protest associated with industrial action. Examining the stated policy aims of Government, and available evidence which speaks to those policy aims and to the likely impact of the new rules, we argue that the freedom of workers and trade unions to participate in and organise industrial action has indeed been narrowed very considerably by this Act; further, that the case for amending the existing legal framework was not at all well made."

"This paper aims to assess the nature and significance of Lord Wedderburn's contribution to the elaboration of a theory of labour law. Noting the extent to which Wedderburn was influenced, in this respect as in others, by the work of Otto Kahn-Freund, it focuses on the question of whether Wedderburn ever developed a theory of labour law that was clearly distinguishable from Kahn-Freund's. Were there significant differences in the two scholars' expositions of abstentionism, or collective laissez-faire? Through a close reading of Wedderburn's work, it is suggested that Wedderburn was a strong proponent of the principle of collective laissez-fare, in his early as well as his later writing. In the changed political context of the 1980s and 1990s, he undertook the important task of seeking to update or restate the principle as an expression of social-democratic values in the field of work and working relationships."

"The statutory recognition procedure contained in Schedule A1 to the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 came into force in June 2000 and was amended in 2004. In comparison to earlier legislation dealing with recognition, the new procedure was not designed to encourage the spread of collective bargaining. It was shaped, instead, by the Blair Government's wish to take an even-handed approach to the matter of trade union recognition, upholding the freedom of businesses to choose their own methods of communicating with workers, and intervening only where a majority of workers wished a union to be recognised. The result is a statutory recognition procedure which is curiously unbiased in favour of union recognition. According to a recent statement from the ILO's Committee of Experts, the procedure contravenes the ‘Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining' as protected in Convention 98. In the Committee's opinion, the principle that only unions with the support of a majority of the relevant workers should be recognised is at odds with Convention 98. To bring the procedure into conformity with ILO standards would thus require a rethink of the central premise upon which it is constructed."