Employment Law Expert Challenges New Labour Policies

PRESS RELEASE
 
Thursday 23 October 2008 
 
Speaking at a conference organized by the Foundation for Law, Justice and Society in Oxford on 29 October, Professor Hugh Collins (LSE) will argue that New Labour, not the Thatcher government, was responsible for the real break from the political settlements of the Trade Disputes Act 1906, which established collective bargaining as a primary guarantee of social justice.
 
Professor Collins will argue that, while Labour’s policies sought to reorient labour law to serve the new goals of social inclusion, partnership and competitiveness, this Third Way agenda risks a return to the inequities of an uncontrolled free market in labour. In the face of international pressures to further reduce regulation, he suggests that what is required is a new social contract that constitutionalizes social and economic rights.
 
The public lecture entitled ‘Beyond the Third Way in labour Law’ will open the Foundation for Law, Justice and Society’s conference on ‘Work, Employment and Industrial Relations in the New Social Contract’. It will be followed by a two-day workshop in which a panel of experts will discuss trade unionism; benefits and job security; and the effects of globalization on labour markets.
 
 
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Notes for editors
 
Lecture:
‘Beyond the Third Way in Labour Law:
Towards the Constitutionalization of Labour Law?’
Professor Hugh Collins, Professor of English Law, LSE
 
5.30 pm, Wednesday 29th October
Rhodes House, South Parks Rd, Oxford
 
Workshop:
‘Work, Employment and Industrial Relations in the New Social Contract’
Thursday 30-Friday 31 October
 
For further information, including details of the seminar programme and participants, please visit the Foundation for Law, Justice and Society’s website at: http://www.fljs.org/events
 
Professor Hugh Collins is among the very foremost British scholars of labour or employment law, with a well-developed national and international reputation. His Justice in Dismissal (1992) established him as the most important theorist of the British law of unfair dismissal.
 
The Foundation for Law, Justice and Society is an independent institution affiliated with the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies at the University of Oxford.

Founded in 2005, the mission of the Foundation is to study, reflect on and promote an understanding of the role that law plays in society. This is achieved by analysing issues of contemporary interest and importance.
 
The Foundation draws on the work of scholars and researchers, and aims to make its work easily accessible to practitioners and professionals, whether in government, business, or the law.
http://www.fljs.org

For more information, please contact Phil Dines, Publications and Communications Manager:
+44 (0)7809 219 543 (mobile)
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phil.dines@fljs.org