1st Edition

The Changing Law of the Employment Relationship Comparative Analyses in the European Context

By Nicola Countouris Copyright 2007
    274 Pages
    by Routledge

    274 Pages
    by Routledge

    During the past few decades, industrialized countries have witnessed a progressive crisis of the regulatory framework sustaining the binary model of the employment relationship based on the subordinate employment/autonomous self-employment dichotomy. New atypical and hybrid working arrangements have emerged, challenging the traditional notions of, and divisions between, autonomy and subordination. This in turn has strained labour law systems across industrialized countries that were previously based on the notion of dependent and subordinate employment to cast their personal scope of application. Nicola Countouris advances ideas for a new dynamic equilibrium in employment law to accommodate this evolution, providing a comparative account of the development of the employment relationship in four key European countries - the UK, Germany, France and Italy.

    Contents: Preface; Introduction; The employment relationship and the contract of employment in industrialised societies; Re-shaping the personal scope of labour law: an analysis of current debates in Europe; Atypical employment relationships: a comparative analysis of fixed-term, part-time and temporary agency work in Europe; The ILO notion of the worker and the scope of the employment relationship; The personal scope of application of EC social legislation; EC regulation of atypical forms of work - between employment law and employment policy; Conclusions; Bibliography; Index.

    Biography

    Nicola Countouris is a Lecturer in Law at the University of Reading. His current research projects include 'Personal debt in Europe' and 'Public Services in Europe: the Case of Employment Services'.

    'In this book, Dr Countouris presents a penetrating and original analysis of a key area of evolution of current European employment law. He has chosen a timely moment at which to do so, since his analysis is crucially useful to the understanding of the new ILO Recommendation on the Employment Relationship and the new EU Green Paper on labour law.' Mark R. Freedland, St. John's College, University of Oxford, UK The quest for defining the scope of labour law and ensuring protection for all those in need of protection is never ending. This should probably not surprise us, given the economic incentives for (short sighted) employers to evade labour laws. But we should not be deterred either. The new book by Nicola Countouris is yet another important step in that bumpy road...[and is] a useful and important contribution to the already rich literature on this topic.' International Journal of Law In Context