Smith & Wood's Employment Law

Smith & Wood’s Employment Law draws on the extensive teaching and practical experience of its authors to provide students with a clear explanation of essential legislation and case detail while also offering incisive academic commentary and critical detail to help with essay preparation and class work. Throughout the book, topics are carefully explained in their social and historical context, providing readers with an insight into the fast-paced development of employment law and offering perceptive analysis of its future direction. This thirteenth edition has been produced against the background of the 2015 election and the end of the Coalition government, and of course with the largest elephant in the room of the result of the referendum on membership of the EU. The meaning of the latter remains a matter of almost complete uncertainty at the time of writing, and indeed is likely to remain so for much of the currency of this edition, but where appropriate it contains speculation as to possible effects. At the opposite end of the spectrum, this edition also contains the up-to-date case law on detailed employment law developments such as ACAS early conciliation, tribunal fees, whistleblowing, discrimination law as the Equality Act 2010 beds in, and the whole question of the effect of modern phenomena such as social media use on traditional areas of employment law. On the legislative front, this edition considers the reforms to collective labour law contained in the Trade Union Act 2016. There have also been changes to the style and layout of the book in order to aid accessibility for the reader, given the ever-increasing complexity of the law itself here.