ABSTRACT
In the previous chapters we have already referred occasionally to the EU and in this section we examine the European Union in terms of how the social dimension has and may impact upon employee relations in the UK. At the time of writing and for the foreseeable future the EU is a strange mix of a largely deregulated single market in terms of the mobility of capital, goods and services and labour, but in which there are also strong traditions of social protectionism at a national level that have not been replicated at the level of the Union (Figure 4.1).
