Britain’s Flexible Labour Force: New Barriers to Individual Employment Rights

Abstract

This chapter focuses on Britain, and the continuing quest to free employers from laws which might ‘impose’ burdens and costs on business. ‘Flexibility’ is conceptualized in the neo-liberal sense, that is, on employers’ terms, entailing instability and precariousness for employees — a British interpretation discussed elsewhere at greater length (Pollert 1991). The New Labour government, elected in 1997, has pursued the free-market policies entrenched by its Conservative predecessor. Asserting Britain’s neo-liberal position in Europe, in 2000 Prime Minister Tony Blair opposed the legal enforcement of the Charter of Fundamental Rights while in draft and in 2004 reiterated this during discussions of the proposed European Constitution: ‘We are not prepared to have anything that takes away the ability to make sure our industrial laws in this country remain as flexible as they are now’ (Guardian, 16 June 2004).