The Employment Contract: From Collective Procedures to Individual Rights

TLDR

The article examines Britain’s employment contract structure and the role of collective bargaining in regulating pay and non‑pay terms, using data from the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey. Logistic regression shows that larger firms and those with trade unions have higher contractual formalization and legal compliance, and union activity is linked to better fringe benefits, indicating collective bargaining enhances access to and improvement of statutory rights.

Abstract

The article analyses the institutional basis and form of the employment contract in Britain using the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey. It assesses the extent to which collective bargaining still regulates pay and non‐pay aspects of employment. While collective procedures have declined in importance, there has been an increase in legal governance of the employment relationship. Logistic regression analysis establishes that both contractual formalization and legal compliance are greater in larger organizations and where trade unions are present. Trade union activity is also associated with superior fringe benefits. Collective bargaining thus appears to facilitate both access to and improvement on statutory rights.