Regulating Labour in the Wake of Globalisation: New Challenges, New Institutions(Columbia London Law Series)

In recent decades, the prevailing response to the problem of unacceptable labour market outcomes in both Europe and North America - national regulation of labour standards and labour relations, coupled with collective bargaining - has come under increasing pressure from the economic and technological forces associated with globalisation. As those forces have shifted power away from national governments and labour unions and toward capital, the appropriate institutional locus of labour regulation has become hotly contested. There have been efforts to move the locus of regulation downward to smaller units of governance, including firms themselves, upward to larger units such as regional federations and international organizations, and outward to non-governmental organizations and civil society. In this volume, labour relations scholars from North America and Europe examine the efficacy of these emerging forms of labour regulation, their democratic legitimacy, the goals and values underlying them, and the appropriate direction of reform.

Table of Contents:
1. Regulating Labour in the Wake of Globalisation: New Challenges, New Institutions Cynthia Estlund and Brian Bercusson 2. Corporate Self-Regulation: Political Economy, State Regulation and Reflexive Labour Law Harry Arthurs 3. Toward a Democratic Model of Transnational Labour Monitoring? Mark Barenberg 4. Timing is Everything: Industrialization, Legal Origin and the Evolution of the Contract of Employment in Britain and Continental Europe Simon Deakin 5. Rebuilding the Law of the Workplace in an Era of Self-Regulation Cynthia Estlund 6. Flexibilization, Globalization, and Privatization: Three Challenges to Labour Rights in our Time Katherine V W Stone 7. Law, Norms, and Complex Discrimination Susan Sturm 8. The WTO as a Mechanism for Labour Regulation Bob Hepple 9. A Changing Institutional Architecture of the European Social Model? Brian Bercusson 10. International Regulation of the Global Economy—The Role of Trade Unions KD Ewing 11. Alternative Mechanisms of Voice Representation Ulrich Mückenberger 12. The Originality of Transnational Social Norms as a Response to Globalisation A-M Moreau

About the Author :
Cynthia Estlund is Catherine A. Rein Professor of Law at New York University Law School. Brian Bercusson, who died in 2008, was Professor of European Social Law at King's College, London

Review :
...what this truly fascinating collection shows is the results of a wholly effective and successful collaboration between highly respected scholars from North America and Europe in the field of labour law and regulation. The valuable comparative insights are inescapable and persuasive...This book is highly recommended reading for anyone involved or interested in the field of labour/employment law. It may, might I be so bold as to venture, even change your mind on how the workplace, globally, nationally or locally, should be regulated...What this extremely useful volume does is start progress on the long path towards seeking legitimacy and values for standards-setting and dialogue in the workplace in the wake of the unceasing tide of globalisation. A great testament to Bercusson's legacy to labour law. ...Firstly, it brings together two large groups of experts from both sides of the Atlantic, each with its respective intellectual tradition, analytical style and legal culture permeating every page of this book. Secondly, it provides a vivid and topical contextual snapshot of the struggles and challenges faced by contemporary societies in their quest to adapt to this ever-changing ' brave new world ' we live in… Bercussson and Estlund's book is mostly superior to other publications addressing similar subject matter...Overall, the volume paints a detailed portrait of the cutting edge of public policy research about labor market management...Bercusson and Estland's is an important work...I have no hesitation in praising the book's substance. If you want to develop a sophisticated appreciation of labor market management options in the modern world and, at the same time, receive a re-education about labor-market institutions, Bercusson and Estland's new publication should not be ignored.