Labour LawSimon Deakin and Gillian S MorrisHart Publishing, 2009 (5th edn), 914 pp. £32.00; €44.00

It is widely acknowledged that the study of industrial relations needs to include a legalperspective. Some appreciation of the nature and substance of labour law at national,regional (European in the British context) and international levels is relevant if notessential to an understanding of the particular industrial relations environment ofany country. A little over half a century ago, it is arguable that this was more thanadequately provided for students of British industrial relations in a single chapterof 86 pages entitled ‘Legal Framework’ by Kahn-Freund in The System of IndustrialRelations in Great Britain, edited by Flanders and Clegg. Even in the mid-1960s, inwhat was in many respects the first major complete text on British labour law, the firstedition of Wedderburn’s The Worker and the Law covered the subject in some 350pages of the then standard Penguin paperback format. At the end of the first decadeof the 21st century, even if intended as only one chapter among others on differentaspects of contemporary industrial relations, an account of British labour law couldonly be confined to such lengths either by ignoring some of the constituent parts ofthe subject altogether, or limiting the exposition of the law to such an extent as to riskbeing misleading, not least by refraining from any attempt to locate the law within itsindustrial relations context. The latter is likely to be particularly unhelpful to readersseeking to elucidate how the legal environment influences and—what may be verydifferent—seeks to influence ‘the world of work’.

Among the various texts on British ‘labour law’ (in the British context, the label‘employment law’—and historically ‘industrial law’—is generally used interchange-ably with labour law, in contrast with North American practice where ‘labour’relates to the collective and ‘employment’ to the individual aspects of the subject)that are currently available, Deakin and Morris has firmly established its position asthe leading academic work over the years since it was first published in 1995. Thefifth edition published in 2009 maintains the high standard set by its predecessors.The book proceeds from a cogently organised account of the historical developmentand a necessary identification of the ‘sources and institutions of labour law’, to achapter providing comprehensive analysis of the employment relationship, where thecomplex pattern of rights accorded variously to ‘employees’ or the broader categoryof ‘workers’ and particular provisions for certain types of working arrangement—part time, fixed term, agency—is analysed. In a logical sequence, chapters on termsand conditions, discipline and termination, and equality (pre-dating the Equality Act2010, although it should be noted that that Act makes no change to much of thesubstantive law) complete the individual dimension of the subject. Collective labourlaw is similarly analysed in a sequence of chapters that follow identification ofinternational standards with fully analysed and critically assessed accounts of thelaw on freedom of association, collective representation, members’ rights againsttheir unions and industrial action. While the stated principal aim of the book is ‘toanalyse the conceptual and doctrinal structure of labour law and to examine itsapplication to concrete problems of a kind which frequently arise in practice ratherthan to present labour law from the viewpoint of another social science discipline’(p. 3), a particular merit of the work is the very full referencing of each topicfor further detailed analysis, relevant empirical research and perspectives fromdisciplines other than law.

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© 2011 The Author(s)Industrial Relations Journal © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

It might nevertheless be questioned how relevant the extensive, comprehensiveanalysis which the book provides of both ‘individual’ and ‘collective’ labour law is tothe study of contemporary British industrial relations. It may well be true that onlylabour lawyers—whether academics, students or practitioners—will be concerned tofully understand some of the legal detail: the intricacies of the concept of ‘indirectdiscrimination’, the approach which employment tribunals are required to take inadjudicating on the ‘fairness’ of a dismissal, and the uncertain boundaries of liabilityfor the economic torts which can still, as they did in Rookes v Barnard in 1964,radically alter the scope of the legal right—or more accurately freedom—to strike, totake but three examples, all the subject of analysis in some detail by Deakin andMorris, might be seen as issues of concern only to labour lawyers, which can safely beignored by those whose focus is on industrial relations. Analyses of the central legalissues of the depth and with the clarity that Deakin and Morris provide do howeverprovide an important perspective on, and insight into, two issues of general impor-tance to an understanding of industrial relations. The first is how the state (or statesacting collectively in the European Union) seeks to use legal obligations as part ofits social and economic policies, and an assessment of the extent to which labourlaw, seen from this perspective, can be said to be successful. The recent exposure ofthe tensions if not conflict between labour standards and the competition rights ofbusinesses within the European Community, which is described in the final chapter on‘Industrial Action’, points up the need for all who study the subject from whateverperspective to be aware that labour law is not an island within the law either atnational or trans-national level. The implications of its interaction with other areas ofthe law are likely to remain a constant source of uncertainty. The second issue, whichis of common interest to students of both labour law and industrial relations, is theextent to which and ways in which legal rules and norms interact with other factorsthat influence workplace relations. These issues can only be adequately understoodfrom the perspective of a comprehensive awareness of the whole legal environment ofthe sort that Deakin and Morris provide.

Bob SimpsonLondon School of Economics

Vocational Training: International PerspectivesGerhard Bosch and Jean Charest (eds)Routledge Studies in Employment and Work Relations in ContextRoutledge, 2010, 308 pp

This book contains a thorough and rigorous account of vocational training in tencountries. It covers Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Korea, Mexico,Morocco, the United Kingdom and the United States. It is a valuable reference sourceon 10 different systems, a useful update for those of us who are familiar with work andskills in some of these nations, and a sharp reminder of the very different ways thatskills, qualifications, work organisation, education systems and labour marketsinteract. As the editors observe in their introductory chapter (p. 1):

Depending on the quality of the VET, the signals the vocational certificates give to employers mightdiffer from country to country. In some countries, they might signal competency to perform complex

407Book reviews

© 2011 The Author(s)Industrial Relations Journal © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd