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. Douglas Brodie assesses how employment contract law is likely to develop, paying particular attention to wider developments of the law of obligations such as the recognition of the importance of fair dealing and the significance of relational contracts. Investigating the importance of how courts now regard the employment contract as governing personal relations, the author concludes that key attributes of the contract, including the imbalance of power between employee and employer, are likely to remain the key driver for change. The Future of the Employment Contract will be an essential read for students and scholars of employment law and the law of obligations. It will also be of benefit to legal practitioners as they look to frame innovative legal arguments.

The contract of employment provides in many jurisdictions the legal foundation for the employment of workers. This book examines how the development of the common law under the influence of contemporary social and economic pressures has caused this contract to evolve. International employment law experts provide a comparative study of the contract of employment across three closely related common law jurisdictions: the UK, Australia and New Zealand. Adopting a thematic approach, they analyse the key facets of the common law of employment such as who is an employee, the implied duties of employees and the restraints on employee mobility. Examining the interaction between common law and domestic statutory law and the politics and labour relations systems, this book considers the legal variations for each jurisdiction and its response to new developments in employment. It addresses the capacity of the common law to respond to contemporary developments such as the `gig' economy and the increasingly intrusive surveillance of employees, both at work and in their private lives. Insightful and contemporary, this book will appeal to students and scholars of employment and contract law as well as those studying comparative law more widely. Practitioners involved in employment policy or employment litigation will also benefit from the wealth of up-to-date knowledge on common law trends and developments.

Labour law is in crisis. Global economic factors and the changing contours of work and workplace relations have led to a reorientation of the social, economic, political and cultural environment within which labour law has developed. This is not a jurisdictional problem but rather is deeply entrenched in transnational development. Solutions must recognise and mobilise the transformational shift that has taken place over recent decades. Law should be viewed as a force for and a facilitator of change, capable of expressing and determining social relations. The essays in this book explore the challenges posed by labour law's potential reinvention as a discipline fit for accommodating and investigating such change within a range of different but connected jurisdictional and regulatory concepts and paradigms.

Theories of enterprise liability have, historically, had a significant influence on the development of various aspects of the law of torts. Enterprise liability has impacted upon both statutory and common law rules. Prime examples would include laws on workmen's compensation and products liability. Of late, in a number of jurisdictions, enterprise liability has been a powerful catalyst for change in the employer's responsibilities towards third parties by prompting changes to the law on vicarious liability. The results have been seen most dramatically where the employer's responsibility for the intentional torts of employees is concerned. Recent common law reforms have not been without controversy and have raised difficult and challenging questions about the appropriate scope of an employer's responsibility. In response to this, Douglas Brodie offers a critique of the employer's common law obligations, both in tort and under the law of contract of employment.

Theories of enterprise liability have, historically, had a significant influence on the development of various aspects of the law of torts. Enterprise liability has impacted upon both statutory and common law rules. Prime examples would include laws on workmen's compensation and products liability. Of late, in a number of jurisdictions, enterprise liability has been a powerful catalyst for change in the employer's responsibilities towards third parties by prompting changes to the law on vicarious liability. The results have been seen most dramatically where the employer's responsibility for the intentional torts of employees is concerned. Recent common law reforms have not been without controversy and have raised difficult and challenging questions about the appropriate scope of an employer's responsibility. In response to this, Douglas Brodie offers a critique of the employer's common law obligations, both in tort and under the law of contract of employment.

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 of implied 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 the practitioner and the academic.

In the UK the received wisdom has tended to be that,historically, British labour law was abstentionist or non-interventionist, best epitomised by the words of Lord Wedderburn who has written that '...collective bargaining has developed in a system which depends very little on the law, which is covered by very few decisions of the judges, and which is controlled by statute very little, if at all.'. It is not until we reach the Industrial Relations Act 1971 that we discover the first attempt in peacetime to move to a legally regulated system. However, the accuracy of this non-interventionist depiction appears to very much depend on the period which is examined, which is why an historical perspective is needed in order to understand the significance of the current shape and scope of British labour law. The aim of this work is to re-examine the received interpretation by looking at both the role given to law, and that anticipated and argued for it, during the most formative period of its development, the period between 1867 and 1945. The book also revisits the debate about war-time legislation which has tended to be viewed as standing apart from mainstream labour law but which the author demonstrates to have important linkages to the past and present.