Status and Contract in the Employment Relationship

There is evidence, in some recent legal thinking on the employment contract, of a readiness to abandon classical contract principles. This phenomenon is especially apparent in the formulation of the Employment Contract Bill, 1985. In this article, I shall examine this development in the framework of an analysis of the employment relationship and the extent to which it is to be regarded as a contractual relationship, both under differing theoretical approaches and under existing labour law principles. The contemporary employment relationship emerges from a contractual undertaking between individuals to exchange wages for services, but its social significance is not limited to the issues raised by the terms of the contract.