Taking as its starting point the authors' earlier work on Labour Legislation and Public Policy, this book provides a detailed account and critical analysis of British labor legislation and labor market regulation since the early 1990s. Referring back to the earlier history, and filling in the gaps in the early and mid-1990s, the work concentrates mainly on the legislation and policy measures in the employment sphere of the New Labour governments which have been in power since 1997, placing those developments in the context of the relevant aspects of European Community law.
The work argues for an understanding of this body of legislation and regulatory activity as being directed towards the realization of a flexible labor market, and shows how this objective has been pursued in three intersecting areas, those of regulating personal or individual employment relations, regulating collective representation, and promoting work. It explores the methods of regulation which have been used, developing a taxonomy of regulation and a notion of 'light regulation' to characterize some recent legislative interventions. It considers how far the administration of Prime Minister Tony Blair has fulfilled its promises or claims of 'fairness at work,' 'welfare to work,' and 'success at work,' and is of interest to academics studying British and European labor or employment law, employee relations or human resource management, labor market economics, and contemporary politics.