The optimism of the will – towards a comprehensive revision of workers’ rights

Speakers

John Hendy QC (Honorary Professor at UCL Laws)
Professor Nicola Countouris (Professor of Labour Law and European Law at UCL)

About this talk

Labour law reform debates have been caught between the rock of neoliberal deregulation and the hard place of nostalgia for an often idealised past. With its ground breaking publication ‘A Manifesto for Labour Law’, the Institute for Employment Rights, has sought to open a new discourse on the debate on the future of the world of work and on labour regulation, a discourse that is quickly gaining political traction in the UK and has important echoes in other European jurisdictions.

John Hendy QC, Honorary Professor at UCL Laws, will introduce the key regulatory threads of the Manifesto, and in particular the objectives of giving ‘voice’ to workers, shifting the emphasis of workplace regulation from statute to collective agreements between workers and employers, renewed administrative support and public intervention in labour market regulation (with the establishment of a Ministry of Labour), and the introduction of fundamental and enforceable protection for all workers.

Nicola Countouris, Professor of Labour Law and European Law at UCL Laws, will briefly illustrate a number of other similar regulatory initiatives currently developing in other European systems, in particular the Italian, CGIL backed, Carta dei Diritti Universali del Lavoro and the French project ‘Pour un Autre Code du Travail’.