ABSTRACT
Employment and self-employment With a workforce in the UK of many millions, the rules governing employment are of considerable importance. The period of the 1960s to the 1970s saw a massive increase in new employment rights created by Acts of Parliament. Previously, the law of employment had developed largely through case law, and it reflected the attitude that employers could ‘hire and fire’ at will, with no recognition of the inequality of bargaining between employers and employees. To some extent that inequality was remedied by the growth of the power of trade unions. However, between 1979 and 1997 the trade unions were themselves subject to major changes which curtailed their activities on behalf of their members and such new rights as employees received were usually the result of EU developments. The return of a Labour government in 1997 saw a more relaxed approach to the role of the trade unions in the workplace and the introduction of various new individual employment rights, not least as part of the government’s ‘family friendly’ and ‘work-life balance’ policies. The first decade of this century has been largely notable for developments led by EU initiatives in the area of discrimination on the grounds of age, sexual orientation and religion or belief.
