University of BRISTOL LAWD30113 Employment Law Unit Coordinator: Professor Michael Ford QC UNDERGRADUATE UNIT GUIDE Law School 2017/18
Contents Unit Description 3 Teaching Staff 4 Methods of Teaching 4 Methods of Assessment 5 Approach to Study. 8 Core Texts and Resources 10 2 -----
Unit Description This unit seeks to develop an understanding of important aspects of the legal regulation of working life. Employment law is potentially a very wide area, and the unit does not attempt to cover the whole field (impossible in the time available). Instead it focuses on certain topics, while giving you a solid introduction to the fundamental legal concepts. The content of this unit changes each year in response to recent developments and topical issues. The principal issues on which we will concentrate this year, which are the main focus of both the tutorials and the exam, are the following: - the contract of employment, the concept of 'worker' and how the law treats workers on zero-hours contracts, those in the 'gig' economy and other categories of precarious workers; - the legal treatment of domestic workers, including migrant workers working both legally and illegally and international and UK law on modern slavery; - statutory and common law protections relating to dismissal; - access to justice in employment tribunals, and the effect of recent reforms; - debates surrounding the right to strike in UK and international law, including those around the recent Trade Union Act; - protection against discrimination in the sphere of work owing to protected characteristics such as race, sex, disability, religious belief, sexual orientation and age; - the implications of Brexit for workers' rights in the UK, using working time as an illustration of rights derived from EU law. Employment law is much influenced by politics, and we will critically examine the policies which affect employment regulation, drawing on different perspectives (international human, the economic and political justifications). While the actual effects of the law on working life is a central theme, we also analyse the reasoning in 3 -