The Contract of Employment and the Remedial Dimension

This chapter explains the remedial rules of the law of the contract of employment in the institutional contexts, first, of the formation, conduct and ending of work relationships and, secondly, of claiming behaviour and adjudication. The law on remedies is revealed to ensure, by and large, that employment contract law most supports working people with the least need of protection, while tending to bolster and reinforce employee subordination for the rest and to give employers substantial means to control competition. Significant doctrinal incoherence has in turn resulted from the contrast between judicial recognition of major common law obligations during the course of employment relationships and the courts’ minimalist approach to employers’ obligations connected to termination. The constitutional basis for these distinctions however means the onus is on politicians and the legislature to take action to make the common law, statutory rules and adjudicative systems combine better