ABSTRACT

Trade unions are to varying degrees democratic and occupationally based. ‘Democratic’ has the usual majoritarian connotations. That is a crucial counterweight to the labour market pressures that may lead employers to cater to the demands of the ‘marginal’ worker – the most attractive new recruits, or the most valued incumbent employees who might leave for greener pastures. Employment discrimination legislation is the workplace analogue of constitutional equality rights. In the liberal market economies such as the UK and US, by contrast, job security was traditionally governed by the presumption that employment was terminable at will, and in the private sector was left to individual and collective bargaining. In liberal market economies like the US and UK, minimum standards are set solely through legislation, and they are largely uniform across the economy rather than sector-specific. The labour market forces that might impel employers to demand, or employees to accept, longer hours are regarded as social evils to be restrained by law.