The recent case of FCO and others v Bamieh [2019] EWCA Civ 803 in the Court of Appeal considered a particular aspect of the extra-territorial application of the Employment Rights Act 1996 (“ERA”), namely whether whistleblowing provisions could apply in respect of co-workers employed by the UK government but seconded to the international European Union…

The Regulation establishing the European Labour Authority (‘ELA’) was recently adopted by the European Parliament and the Council and will shortly come into force. It is expected that the ELA will be up and running by the autumn. The ELA is one of many measures which are being introduced as a result of the European…

By Valerio De Stefano & Mathias Wouters    Should digital platforms be allowed to charge fees to workers to work? If ordinary rules were clearly applied to platform work, the answer would be a resounding “No”. Workers should, in theory, never be charged to get work. This norm stems directly from the principle that “labour is…

On 13 June 2019, the EU Council adopted the Directive on Work-Life Balance for Parents and Carers. The Directive was proposed in 2017 and it was one of the key legislative initiatives that the European Commission presented alongside its proposal for the European Pillar of Social Rights. It contains significant enhancements to existing EU legislation,…

Antonio Aloisi, Valerio De Stefano, Six Silberman*  In 2017, Sarah O’Connor of the Financial Times published a sensible plea, gently chiding both doomsayers warning of a “jobless society” and “techno-fantasists” paying breathless homage to a digital future filled with exciting new professions. “We should worry less about the jobs that might be going,” wrote O’Connor—due,…

Introduction Earlier this month, I presented a paper at the Socio-Legal Studies Association Annual Conference at the University of Leeds, ‘On the Nature of Work and the Purpose of Labour Law’. A version of the paper as presented at the conference is available online here. In Part I of this two-part blog post, I concluded…

On 18 and 19 March 2019 the XVIIth  annual Conference in Commemoration of Professor Marco Biagi took place in Modena, Italy. The conference is an interdisciplinary classic in the study of comparative labour law, labour markets and industrial relations. It is organized by the Marco Biagi Foundation at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia….