The Coalition Government and employment relations: accelerated neo-liberalism and the rise of employer-dominated voluntarism

The Coalition Government’s interventions in the field of UK employment relations represent a sustained attempt to shift further the balance of domestic employment law and workplace employment relations in favour of employers. The Government has deployed the alleged interests of small and medium sized employers, under conditions of recession and accelerated globalisation, to weaken some individual employment rights, including various long-standing protections. Suprisingly little internal dissension to such developments has been apparent within the Coalition. A ‘Coalition effect’ is detectable through the parallel promotion of ‘fairness’, most visible in a number of new measures to promote work-life balance. However, we argue that the overall impact on UK employment relations is a deliberate attempt to reduce employment rights and the role of law in the individual employment relationship, to weaken workers’ ability to enforce remaining rights, and to strengthen the position of employers vis-a vis employees and government in the regulation of many aspects of the employment relationship.