The Legal Construction of Personal Work Relations

Mark Freedland FBA · Nicola Kountouris

Dec 2011 · OUP Oxford

About this ebook

This book explores the conceptual framework of European employment law, focusing on understanding the law's construction of employment relationships. The book draws on extensive comparative research of the legal architecture of employment relations in national legal systems and EU law to analyse the traditional model of the contract of employment and the difficulties of using the traditional model to frame modern working relationships. The authors then present a new model of the foundations of employment relationships, based on the concept of a personal work nexus, and explore the potential of their model to shape the future development of employment law. Throughout the book, the authors analyse the interaction of domestic and EU employment law, and discuss the possibility of future legal harmonisation in the area. They conclude by exploring the potential for a common framework for European employment law, in the context of broader debates surrounding the harmonisation of European private law.

About the author

Mark Freedland is Professor of Employment Law in the University of Oxford where he engages in teaching research and writing in the fields of Labour or Employment Law and Public Law both in the Law Faculty and as a Fellow and Law Tutor of St John's College. A graduate of University College London, he has been teaching in Oxford since 1970. Nicola Kountouris is a Lecturer in Law at University College London. Prior to that he was a Lecturer at the University of Reading and a Postgraduate Research Fellow at St John's College, Oxford.