This bulletin presents a comparative analysis of the degree of worker protection available today in nine countries in the event of corporate restructuring. The countries are France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. Each of the papers, presented by a noted industrial relations scholar from the country in question, proceeds from a summary of the national legal framework governing corporate restructuring, through the succession of employment contracts, to an analysis of such major components of the problem as justification of economic dismissals and changes in terms and conditions of employment. Specific topics covered in each analysis include the following: special legislation covering transfer of undertakings treatment of insolvent corporations economic dismissals before and after corporate restructuring transfer of workers in lieu of dismissal the role of labour unions and works councils The authors pay particular attention to the effectiveness of employee protection legislation such as the EC Transfer of Undertaking Directive (and its implementation by Member States) and Japan's Labour Contract Succession Law and, in the case of the United States, the virtual absence of such legislation. These papers were originally presented at the Sixth Tokyo Seminar (March 2002) of the Japan Institute of Labour. Their penetrating individual analysis and revealing comparative perspective is sure to help policymakers, lawyers, academics, and other specialists in industrial relations find a way forward in this important area that recognizes the best interests of both employers and employees.

Thirty-three distinguished authorities in the field of labour and industrial relations law gather here to enhance and complement the work of the late Marco Biagi, a man who, at the time of his violent and untimely death, had shown himself to be the most insightful and committed international scholar in this complex and controversial and, as it proved, even dangerous field. The topics covered range over many of Professor Biagi's special interests, including the following: the formulation of a new basis for labour law that could resolve new issues; employee protection in corporate restructuring; the trend toward individual 'enterprise bargaining'; a new European employment policy and what it might entail; the growing phenomenon of 'flexibilisation'; the effects of an aging workforce; the crucial nexus of free trade, labour, and human rights; the promise of EU enlargement; and protection of part-time workers. There is a lot of insight, innovation, and just clear thinking in this wide-ranging and far-reaching book. It will be of exceptional value to scholars, lawyers, and others concerned with the extensive and unpredictable changes under way in today's world of work.

Contains answers by experts to a series of questions based on a fictional case study of an international business which wants to buy or sell a company, or change its operations, in a given country. The questions are chiefly about the business's relations with its employees.

The word?fissured? aptly describes the effect on the workplace of the enormous retreat from direct employment on the part of large enterprises that began several decades ago and shows no sign of slowing down. Market-leading companies, even though they continue to wield considerable influence on the fate of actual workers, may thus be relieved of legal responsibility as employers. How extensive is this phenomenon? Do recourses exist in labour law? What ongoing trends can be discerned? This book tackles these questions and more, with thoroughly researched reports from ten of the world?s leading market-driven economies? Australia, China, France, Germany, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Spain, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

This book presents a series of extremely stimulating analyses of the process of corporate restructuring in the new Member States of the EU. Particularly noteworthy is the book's focus on the Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) that have joined the EU since 2004, an area which has not been prominent in the research on corporate restructuring conducted in Western Europe in the last twenty years. As with their Asian counterparts, these States have generally been perceived as a threat to employment in Western Europe due to the former's benefiting from outsourcing away from the latter. By moving east, the book allows for a different perspective on the restructuring process, by placing it in the context of both Europe and the numerous changes affecting the CEECs. The book seeks to understand the impact of European- and national-level policies on the concept of restructuring, the role of the «acquis communautaire», and the place of social and political actors in the process of change in the context of new Member States, where multinational firms have developed mobility and establishment strategies within the context of broader European and global ones. The density of this collection, its wealth in terms of substantive teachings, and its use of a comparative and multidisciplinary approach that links law, political science, sociology and economics make it an essential resource for those wishing to understand restructuring in the European space after the enlargements of 2004 and 2007 and the impact of European policies and the European Social Model.