The Legal Construction of Personal Work Relations

The Legal Construction of Personal Work Relations explores the conceptual framework of European employment law, focusing on understanding the law's construction of employment relationships. The book draws on extensive comparative research of the legal architecture of employment relations in national legal systems and EU law to analyse the traditional model of the contract of employment and the difficulties of using the traditional model to frame modern working relationships. The authors then present a new model of the foundations of employment relationships, based on the concept of a personal work nexus, and explore the potential of their model to shape the future development of employment law. Throughout the book, the authors analyse the interaction of domestic and EU employment law, and discuss the possibility of future legal harmonisation in the area. They conclude by exploring the potential for a common frame of reference for European employment law, in the context of broader debates surrounding the harmonization of European private law.

Mark Freedland is Professor of Employment Law in the University of Oxford where he engages in teaching, research, and writing in the fields of Labour or Employment Law and Public Law both in the Law Faculty and as a Fellow and Law Tutor of St John's College. A graduate of University College London, he has been teaching in Oxford since 1970.

A principal focus of his research and writing is upon the law of employment contracts. He has developed this work in the context of English law from a monograph on The Contract of Employment (1976) into a more wide-ranging monograph on The Personal Employment Contract (2003). The present book represents the culmination of a project of research and writing, made possible by a Major Research Fellowship granted by the Leverhulme Foundation.

Nicola Kountouris is a Lecturer in Law at University College London. Prior to that he was a Lecturer at the University of Reading and a Postgraduate Research Fellow at St John's College, Oxford.

Introduction: From The Contract of Employment to the Personal Work Relation in English and European Law
Part I: The Legal Analysis of Personal Work Relations
1. Boundaries, Paradigms and Legal Formats
2. The Legal Analysis of Personal Work Relations - A European Comparative Approach
Part II: The Personal Work Relation as a Contract
3. The Legal Construction of Personal Work Relations as Contracts
4. The Formation and Structure of Contracts of Employment
5. The Content and Performance of Contracts of Employment
6. The Termination and Transformation of Contracts of Employment
7. Personal Work Contracts beyond the Contract of Employment
Part III: The Personal Work Relation as a Legal Nexus
8. The Personal Work Relation and the Personal Work Nexus
9. The Personal Work Relation In Secure, Autonomous And Precarious Work Relations
Part IV: The Personal Work Relation in European Law
10. Conclusion: Towards a Common Frame of Reference for the European Law of Personal Work Relations