Employment law: IALS Library Guides

Guide last updated by Katherine Read, November 2023

This guide aims to give a brief introduction to the Library's holdings on Employment Law. Please consult the Library Catalogue for complete information on current titles and locations. If you require further assistance please contact us.

Monday-Friday 9:30-17:00
Tel (0)20 7862 5790
Email ials@sas.ac.uk

This Subject Guide only lists a selection of Library resources on Employment Law. To find additional resources you will need to search the Library Catalogue, which covers the complete holdings of the Library. It is possible to search for books, journals and series of law reports by author, title or keyword. Please note it is not possible to search for individual chapters, journal articles or legislation (e.g. individual Acts or SIs).

IALS Library is mainly open access and readers are able to browse the shelves in the main collection. There are two main exceptions to this:

• Older items (marked RES or Depository on the catalogue record) are kept in the closed basement.
• Key texts for LLM students are often kept in the Short Loan collection.

Please request these at the Library Enquiry Desk on the 2nd Floor.

For more information on understanding the catalogue record and further guidance on the location of materials please refer to our guide Classmarks and the Location of Resources in the Library.

The Library classifies textbooks either by jurisdiction (GO13, GA2 etc.) or according to subject area, examples of which include Comparative Law (SB), Public International Law (SG) and Private International Law/ Conflict of Laws (SH).  All classmark sections have a FOL section for oversize volumes, which is located on the same floor of the Library.

When you are searching the Library Catalogue for books, please note that only the current edition is held on the open shelves or in the Short Loan collection. IALS has a rich collection of previous editions held in the closed basement and these will display a Depository number on the catalogue. Please request previous editions from the Enquiries Desk on the 2nd floor.

Employment law material for Common Law countries is shelved at SJ250
EU Employment law material is shelved at GO1.A1.C.5
Comparative labour law material is shelved at SB60

The following list represents a selection of textbooks on employment law. Please check the catalogue records for further information and location. Titles marked as e-books may also be available in print. Access from home requires your IALS library barcode and your  family name.  E books with 'open access' status on the catalogue are available to all users of this guide. 

Adams, Z.  Deakin and Morris on labour law 7th ed. 2021

Adams, Z. The legal concept of work  OUP 2022 (e-book) 

Allen, R.    Employment law and human rights. 3rd ed. 2018

Barnard, C.   EU employment law. 4th ed. 2012           

Blanpain, R et al.  Comparative labour law & industrial relations in industrialised market economies 10th ed. 2010      

Butterworths employment law handbook. 31st ed. 2023           

Employment law (Blackstone’s Statutes) 31st   ed. 2021-2022     

Collins, H., Ewing, K.D. & McColgan, A.   Labour law    2nd ed. 2019            

Collins, H., Ewing, K.D. & McColgan, A.   Labour law text and materials. 2nd ed. 2005

Collins, H. and others Philosophical foundations of labour law  2018 OUP  (e-book)               

Emir, A.    Selwyn's law of employment  22nd ed. 2022

Hardy, S.     European employment laws: a comparative guide. 3rd ed. 2016

Marshall, S.  Living wage: regulatory solutions to informal and precarious work in global supply chains  2019 OUP (e-book)

Oudkerk, D. & Rogers, A.  International employment disputes  2019  Sweet and Maxwell  (e-book)

Pitt, G.     Pitt's employment law. 13th ed. 2024     

Smith, I. et al.  Smith & Wood’s employment law  16th ed. 2023

Vogt, J and others  The right to strike in international law  2020 Bloomsbury (e-book)             

IALS Library holds a wide selection of current serial titles on employment law from many different jurisdictions. These are located on all floors of the Library. Some titles are only in printed volumes while others or available in both formats. For more detailed help, please refer to the guide on Finding journal articles. The following titles focus particularly on employment law but there may be relevant articles in less specialised journals.

ABA Journal of labor and employment law (previously Labor Lawyer) E-Journal

Comparative labor law & policy journal  E-Journal

Employment law bulletin  E-Journal

Entscheidungen des Bundesarbeitsgerichts

Hofstra labor and employment law journal   Open Access 

Industrial and labor relations review E-Journal

Industrial law journal E-Journal

Industrial law journal including the industrial law reports [South Africa]  E-Journal

International journal of comparative labour law and industrial relations

If you are interested in legislation or cases concerning employment law issues in specific countries you will need to consult the legislation or law reports for that jurisdiction.

Consult the Library Catalogue to find the general classmark for the country you require. Consult consolidations of legislation, digests or indexes to trace particular acts or cases.

Academic users may also use databases like Lexis/Westlaw to find UK, US, EU or international decisions. For further information please refer to Law Databases or ask at the Library Enquiry Desk.

You may also find it useful to refer to our guides on finding Legislation and Cases or check to see if we have a Jurisdiction Research Guide for the country you are interested in.

Eagle-i is an internet portal maintained and updated by IALS library staff. It allows you to search for quality web resources on employment law 

A valuable free source is BAILII, the British and Irish Legal information Institute which is based and maintained at IALS. It provides free access to full text UK judgments and legislation on a wide range of subjects including employment law and also links to other free World Law databases. Jurisdictions covered in these resources include Commonwealth countries eg. AustLII  (Australia) and CanLII (Canada), France, Germany, Italy, the USA and South Africa.

The following represent a sample of the available quality individual web resources on employment law.

ACAS – Independent UK body to resolve industrial disputes. Includes access to full text policy discussion papers

http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=1461

Bundesarbeitsgericht (Federal Labour Court in Germany). Background information about the work of the court is available in English  and also in a simpler version of German (Leichtsprache).

http://www.bundesarbeitsgericht.de/

International Labour Organization (ILO). Includes access to full text working papers

http://www.ilo.org/travail/lang--en/index.htm

NATLEX – database on national labour, social security and related human rights in different jurisdictions run by the ILO

http://www.ilo.org/dyn/natlex/natlex_browse.home