Labour law in motion : diversification of the labour force & terms and conditions of employment / editor Roger Blanpain ; guest editor Takashi Araki & Shinya Ouchi

Reports given at the 7th Tokyo Seminar, March 2004, organized by the Japan Institute for Labor Policy and Training

While legislation protecting employees exists in most advanced countries, the notion of who actually is an employee has become unstable. Moreover, the decentralization of traditional collective bargaining is clearly under way everywhere, and the all-important balance between workers' security and employers' flexibility continues to change radically, either retreating toward individual statutory rights or seeking new forms of employee representation. All eleven authors emphasize recent and ongoing changes in their countries' labour laws and evaluate the factors that have contributed to such changes. Each author concludes that reform of traditional labour laws is indeed necessary. However, the book as a whole clearly demonstrates that the content of such reform differs from country to country, particularly in the extent to which labour law entrusts the regulation of working conditions to the market.