The Worker and the Law

Out of Print

In Britain today there are nearly 24,000,000 workers, who make up more than 45% of the entire population. Every year produces thousands and thousands of industrial accidents, every week brings news of some fresh industrial dispute, every day someone is sacked without notice, joins a' closed shop', quarrels with his union, is put on short time, or becomes unemployed.

Yet Professor Wedderburn's The Worker and the law is the first introduction to British labour law and its place in our society. After fifty years of immobility the Contracts of Employment Act, 1963, and the case of Rooles v. Barnard are two of the many signs that labour law is again on the move. In which direction should it move, and how should the changes be made? Do we need new legislation?

Neither these basic issues nor the strategy of current disputes in industry can be understood without a basic grasp of labour law. Professor Wedderburn's book makes plain the shape of the law as lawyers argue it, but al so describes its place in industrial relations and in society as a whole. Indeed, as the author concludes, labour law is 'the place where law, politics and social assumptions meet in a man',

Here for the first time is a full introduction to the development and present state of the law as it affects both the worker and the society in which he works.