This analytical book examines how the common law of the employment contract is likely to evolve. Tracing the radical evolution of this area over the last 40 years, it explores how many of the changes in common law have been triggered by the judicial 'discovery' of the key attributes of the relationship.
Douglas Brodie assesses how employment contract law is likely to develop, paying particular attention to wider developments of the law of obligations such as the recognition of the importance of fair dealing and the significance of relational contracts. Investigating the importance of how courts now regard the employment contract as governing personal relations, the author concludes that key attributes of the contract, including the imbalance of power between employee and employer, are likely to remain the key driver for change.
The Future of the Employment Contract will be an essential read for students and scholars of employment law and the law of obligations. It will also be of benefit to legal practitioners as they look to frame innovative legal arguments.
Industry Reviews
'This work comprises a necessary addition to any labour law academic's library, particularly those interested in the dynamicity of ways the common law, alongside statute, will impact the employment contract going forward. It is an equally beneficial resource for students of labour law, and will undoubtedly be of use to employment law practitioners who wish to shape cutting-edge legal arguments and persuasively influence judicial decision-making. In that sense, it is set to influence how judges evolve the law governing the employment contract in the future.' -- Gabrielle Golding, The Edinburgh Law Review
'In Douglas Brodie's The Future of the Employment Contract, one of the world's leading scholars on the employment contract provides a rich and judicious examination of the prospects for a worker-protective common law. The result is an impressive piece of scholarship that is sensitive to the virtues and the vices of the common law mind when it encounters the world of work. It deserves to be widely read, and it will influence academic and judicial debates at the frontiers of the discipline.' -- Alan Bogg, University of Bristol, UK
'In The Future of the Employment Contract Douglas Brodie deftly analyzes current normative and jurisprudential debates about the contract of employment in UK law, interwoven with insights from other common law jurisdictions. The result is a work of perceptiveness and foresight, relevant far beyond the UK, that highlights how changing forms of work, changing terms of law, and public values will shape the future frontiers of the common law of contracts.' -- Claire Mumme, University of Windsor, Canada
