ABSTRACT
The Directive on Acquired Rights was intended to limit the impact on workers of restructuring and rationalisation consequent, upon the realisation of the common market. The Acquired Rights Directive is an example of minimum harmonisation, where States may opt for higher standards of worker protection than that provided by the Directive, which extends only to the partial regulation of the field, some matters being left to be defined according to the national systems. The difficulties experienced by the UK in accepting the Acquired Rights Directive as part of the domestic legal system were in part due to the rule in Noakes v Doncaster Amalgamated Collieries that the contract of employment is a personal one. In so far as the Directive maintains a floor of minimum standards for employees, it limits price competition, and frustrates some of the aims of the process of contracting out in the public sector.
