This book deals with the development of employment legislation and policy in the United Kingdom during the period from the early 1990s until 2006. The core of the work consists of a critical analysis of the policy and legislation of the ‘New Labour’ governments headed by Tony Blair, and considers both domestically-driven initiatives and those governments' responses to employment initiatives stemming from the social policy of the European Community. The book constitutes a successor volume to the same authors' Labour Legislation and Public Policy (OUP, 1992), which covered the period from the en ... More

This book deals with the development of employment legislation and policy in the United Kingdom during the period from the early 1990s until 2006. The core of the work consists of a critical analysis of the policy and legislation of the ‘New Labour’ governments headed by Tony Blair, and considers both domestically-driven initiatives and those governments' responses to employment initiatives stemming from the social policy of the European Community. The book constitutes a successor volume to the same authors' Labour Legislation and Public Policy (OUP, 1992), which covered the period from the end of the Second World War to the early 1990s, but it is also a free-standing book in its own right. The work argues for an understanding of this body of legislation and regulatory activity as being directed towards the realisation of a flexible labour market. It shows how the flexibility objective has been pursued in three intersecting areas: regulating personal employment relations; promoting a collective ‘voice’ for employees at work; and maximising levels of employment. The book assesses how far the goal of flexibility has been achieved and also analyses the regulatory techniques generated by this policy and the strengths and limitations of making labour market flexibility the cornerstone of employment legislation and policy.