Towards a new web of rules: an international review of institutional experimentation to strengthen employment protections

Journal article

This article surveys institutional experimentation that has emerged internationally in response to the contraction of the traditional model of employment protection. Various initiatives are analysed according to the particular challenges they are designed to address: the emergence of non-standard employment contracts; increasing sources of labour supply engaging in non-standard work; intensification of exogenous pressures on the employment relationship; the growth of intermediaries that separate the management from the control of labour; and the emergence of entities that subvert the employment relationship entirely. Whereas post-war industrial relations scholars characterised the traditional regulatory model as a ‘web of rules’, we argue that nascent institutional experimentation is indicative of an emergent ‘patchwork of rules’. The identification of such experimentation is instructive for scholars, policymakers, workers’ representatives and employers seeking solutions to the contraction of the traditional regulatory model.

Authors: Wright, C; Wood, A; Trevor, J; McLaughlin, C; Huang, W

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Emerald
• Journal: Employee Relations
• Volume: 41
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 313-330
• Publication date: 2019-01-01
• Acceptance date: 2018-11-19
• DOI: 10.1108/ER-10-2018-0259
• ISSN: 0142-5455
• Keywords: gig economy; fissured work; non-standard work; employment relations; institutional experimentation; labour activism