The rhetoric of 'flexibility' and its potential to empower workers forms a key part of employment policy at the EU level. This book examines the regulation of 'flexible' or 'non-standard' forms of work, which include part-time, temporary, and temporary agency work. It unites analysis of changing patterns of work with exploration of the policy debate about how such work should be regulated. McCann explores how workers in non-standard jobs have traditionally been excluded from the protection of labour law or treated less favourably than the full-time permanent workforce because labour laws have been designed around the 'standard' full-time permanent employee. Analysing in detail recent United Kingdom legislative reforms and the wider context of the EU and International Labour Organization, this book shows how, although flexible working arrangements are now more strongly protected, they are not fully integrated into UK labour law. McCann ascribes the continuing disadvantage of flexible workers to the quest to maintain a 'flexible' labour market. She contends that the current balance between ensuring flexibility for employers, and ensuring minimum standards for workers is undermining protection for non-standard workers by allowing their employment rights to be derogated in the interest of labour market flexibility.

First Published in 2007. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

John Maynard Keynes once made the bold prediction that the three-hour work day would prevail for his grandchildren's generation. Seventy years later, the question of working time is as pertinent as it was at the inception of the 40-hour week. Not until now, however, has there been a global comparative analysis of working time laws, policies and actual working hours. Despite a century-long optimism about reduced working hours and some progress in legal measures limiting working hours, this book demonstrates that differences in actual working hours between industrialized and developing countries remain considerable - without any clear sign of hours being reduced.This study aims to offer some suggestions about how this gap can begin to be closed. Lee, McCann and Messenger trace the theoretical background of the concept of working time before examining recent trends in working time laws in developing countries and countries in transition. The study then shifts its focus to developments in selected countries, considering both broad trends in working time at a national level and the structure and dynamics underlying these trends.The authors provide a remarkable set of policy suggestions that preserve health and safety, are 'family-friendly', promote gender equality, enhance productivity and facilitate workers' choice and influence over their working hours. This book will be of great interest to policy makers engaged with working conditions or health and safety, labour market experts, trade union leaders and workers' organizations, as well as academics and researchers in the fields of industrial relations, labour economics and labour law.