This work examines the received wisdom that, British labour law was abstentionist or non-interventionist, by looking at the role given to law.

Anne Davies provides students with an account of the various approaches to labour law currently adopted in the academic literature. Approaches such as human rights discourse and economic analysis offer a rich understanding of the larger themes in labour law.

Master and servant acts, the cornerstone of English employment law for more than four hundred years, gave largely unsupervised, inferior magistrates wide discretion over employment relations, including the power to whip, fine, and imprison men, women, and children for breach of private contracts with their employers. The English model was adopted, modified, and reinvented in more than a thousand colonial statutes and ordinances regulating the recruitment, retention, and discipline of workers in shops, mines, and factories; on farms, in forests, and on plantations; and at sea. This collection presents the first integrated comparative account of employment law, its enforcement, and its importance throughout the British Empire. Sweeping in its geographic and temporal scope, this volume tests the relationship between enacted law and enforced law in varied settings, with different social and racial structures, different economies, and different constitutional relationships to Britain. Investigations of the enforcement of master and servant law in England, the British Caribbean, India, Africa, Hong Kong, Canada, Australia, and colonial America shed new light on the nature of law and legal institutions, the role of inferior courts in compelling performance, and the definition of "free labor" within a multiracial empire. Contributors: David M. Anderson, St. Antony's College, Oxford Michael Anderson, London School of Economics Jerry Bannister, Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia M. K. Banton, National Archives of the United Kingdom, London Martin Chanock, La Trobe University, Australia Paul Craven, York University Juanita De Barros, McMaster University Christopher Frank, University of Manitoba Douglas Hay, York University Prabhu P. Mohapatra, Delhi University, India Christopher Munn, University of Hong Kong Michael Quinlan, University of New South Wales Richard Rathbone, University of Wales, Aberystwyth Christopher Tomlins, American Bar Foundation, Chicago Mary Turner, London University

The first book to explore the philosophical foundations of labour law in detail, including topics such as the meaning of work, the relationship between employee and employer, and the demands of justice in the workplace.

Deakin and Morris' Labour Law, a work cited as authoritative in the higher appellate courts of several jurisdictions, provides a comprehensive analysis of current British labour law which explains the role of different legal and extra-legal sources in its evolution, including collective bargaining, international labour standards, and human rights. The new edition, while following the broad pattern of previous ones, highlights important new developments in the content of the law, and in its wider social, economic and policy context. Thus the consequences of Brexit are considered along with the emerging effects of the Covid-19 crisis, the increasing digitisation of work, and the implications for policy of debates over the role of the law in constituting and regulating the labour market. The book examines in detail the law governing individual employment relations, with chapters covering the definition of the employment relationship; the sources and regulation of terms and conditions of employment; discipline and termination of employment; and equality of treatment. This is followed by an analysis of the elements of collective labour law, including the forms of collective organisation, freedom of association, employee representation, internal trade union government, and the law relating to industrial action. The seventh edition of Deakin and Morris' Labour Law is an essential text for students of law and of disciplines related to management and industrial relations, for barristers and solicitors working in the field of labour law, and for all those with a serious interest in the subject.

This account of artisan and working-class society in its formative years, 1780 to 1832, adds an important dimension to our understanding of the nineteenth century. E.P. Thompson shows how the working class took part in its own making and re-creates the whole life experience of people who suffered loss of status and freedom, who underwent degradation and who yet created a culture and political consciousness of great vitality.

Written by prominent UK labour lawyers, this textbook is comprehensive and engaging, with detailed commentary and integrated materials.