The Law and Collective Bargaining

This book examines the relationship between the law and collective bargaining in the modern world of work.

It brings together theoretical, normative and practical perspectives from around the world to rethink the nexus between the two institutions of work regulation and labour market governance in the face of unprecedented social and economic changes.

Recognised as a core international labour standard in many countries, collective bargaining is a fundamental institution of post-war democracies. Despite this, traditional collective bargaining systems inherited from the 20th-century industrial era are under pressure. The market-constitutive function of industrial relations institutions has lost traction, while statutory law – once responsive to collective bargaining – struggles to cope with fluid work arrangements and fragmented labour markets.

Drawing on a tradition of labour law scholarship grounded in legal pluralism, the book explores how legislators and industrial relations institutions are reshaping the law-collective bargaining nexus to cope with these challenges, in search for a renewed vision of labour governance: a vision that recognises law and collective bargaining as institutions of co-regulation, legal imagination, and social progress.