FromPrevention to Empowerment: A New Model for UK Labour Law

Abstract

For at least the last 40 years, law and policy in relation to work in the UK have been rooted in a paradigm of prevention: preventing employers from abusing the power they enjoy over workers in ways that are harmful to the latter’s interests. This article argues that this paradigm is rooted in a partial and structural, understanding of power, that is incapable of grappling with the true scope of the problems associated with power as it relates to work in the context of capitalism. Exposing the issues that exist with this understanding of power, and advancing an alternative structural conceptualisation, the article explores the implications that such an understanding might have for labour law and policy.