Human Rights at Work Reimagining Employment Law

Should workers ever lose their job because of their political views or affiliations? Should female employees be entitled to wear a headscarf in the workplace for religious reasons? Can it ever be right for an employer to dismiss someone for personal activities undertaken in their leisure time? What restrictions, if any, should be placed on the right to strike?

Engagingly written, this innovative new textbook provides an entry point for exploring these and other topical issues, enabling students to analyse the applicability of human rights to disputes between employers and workers in the UK. It offers an original perspective on the traditional topics of employment law as well as looking in greater depth at new issues, such as employees’ use of social media or the enforcement of human rights in the gig economy.

Uniquely, the book considers the most important international Conventions that are relevant for the law in the UK, especially the European Convention on Human Rights, the European Social Charter, Conventions of the International Labour Organisation, and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.

A central question that each of the chapters addresses is whether UK employment law is compatible with human rights law. Each chapter discusses all the key cases drawn from various jurisdictions, including the Court of Justice of the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights.

Written by a stellar team of authors, this textbook is an invaluable teaching aid for both postgraduate and undergraduate students studying employment law, human rights, human resource management, and industrial relations.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Sources of Rights at Work

3. Human Rights and Personal Scope

4. Right to Equal Treatment and Equal Opportunity

5. Freedom of Association

6. Human Rights and Worker Voice

7. The Right to Strike

8. The Right to Work

9. Migration, Slavery, Servitude, Forced Labour and Human Trafficking

10. The Right to Fair Pay

11. The Right to Reasonable Limitation of Working Hours

12. Business, Supply Chains and Human Rights

13. The Right to Private Life at Work

14. Private Life Away from Work

15. Freedom of Expression Connected to the Performance of Work

16. Freedom of Expression Outside Work

17. Freedom to Manifest a Religion

18. The Right to Protection against Unjustified Dismissal

19. Human Rights as the Justification for Labour Law

About the Authors

Alan Bogg is Professor of Labour Law at the University of Bristol and a Barrister at Old Square Chambers. He was previously a Fellow of Hertford College, Oxford, and Professor of Labour Law in the University of Oxford. He retains an Emeritus Fellowship at Hertford College. He is the author of The Democratic Aspects of Trade Union Recognition (Hart, 2009), which was awarded the Peter Birks Prize for Outstanding Legal Scholarship in 2010. He is a co-author of the multi-author volume The Contract of Employment (OUP, 2016); and the co-author of Human Rights at Work: Reimagining Employment Law (Hart, 2024) (with Hugh Collins, ACL Davies, and Virginia Mantouvalou). Alan was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize in Law in 2014.

Hugh Collins is the Vinerian Professor of English Law, All Souls’ College Oxford

ACL Davies is Professor of Law and Public Policy, Faculty of Law, University of Oxford and Fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford, UK.