Throughout the industrial world, the discipline of labour law has fallen into deep philosophical and policy crisis, at the same time as new theoretical approaches make it a field of considerable intellectual ferment. Modern labour law evolved in a symbiotic relationship with a postwar institutional and policy agenda, the social, economic, and political underpinnings of which have gradually eroded in the context of accelerating international economic integration and wage-competition, a decline in the capacity of the nation-state to steer economic progress, the ascendancy of fiscal austerity and monetarism over Keynesian/welfare state politics, the appearance of post-industrial production models, the proliferation of contingent employment relationships, the fragmentation of class-based identities and emergence of new social movements, and the significantly increased participation of women in paid work. These developments offer many appealing possibilities - the opportunity, for example, to contest the gender division of labour and re-think the boundaries between immigration and labour policy. But they also hold out quite threatening prospects - including increased unemployment and inequality and the decline of workers' organizations and social participation - in the context of proliferating constraints imposed by international financial pressures on enacting redistributive social and economic policies. New strategies must be developed to meet these challenges. These essays - which are the product of a transnational comparative dialogue among academics and practitioners in labour law and related legal fields, including social security, immigration, trade, and development - identify, analyse, and respond to some of the conceptual and policy challenges posed by globalization.

About the Author
Joanne Conaghan is Professor of Law at the University of Kent at Canterbury. Richard Michael Fischl is Professor of Law at the University of Miami. Karl Klare is Professor of Law at Northeastern University. They are co-secretaries of INTELL-International Network on Transformative Employment and Labour Law-from whose recent conferences these essays have emerged.

Reviews
[a] valuable book which is worthy of a place on any labour lawyer's bookshelf. * Stephen T. Hardy, Modern Law Review *
The strength of [this] collection is that it contains critical, interdisciplinary and international perspectives on a wide variety of topics...there is much in this book to stimulate teachers, researchers and students of a subject in transition. * Bob Hepple, The Cambridge Law Journal, 2002 *
... well worth reading...provides interesting insights...which will no doubt engage readers...for some time to come. * Jill Murray, Australian Journal of Labour Law, 2003 *



Book Information
ISBN 9780199271818
Author Joanne Conaghan
Format Paperback
Page Count 578
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 884g
Dimensions(mm) 232mm * 156mm * 31mm