The Cinderella Directive? Employee Rights to Information about Conditions Applicable to their Contract or Employment Relationship JON CLARK and MARK HALL* 1. INTRODUCTION U n the 14th October 1991 the EC Council of Ministers adopted the first Directive affecting employee rights at work—other than in the field of health and safety—under the Commission's Social Charter Action Programme. All member states are required to comply with its terms by the 30th June 1993. At first glance the Directive on 'An Employer's Obligation to Inform Employees of the Conditions Applicable to the Contract or Employment Relationship'1 would not appear to require major changes to British law. The UK has long had legislation on written statements of the main terms of employment, and, indeed, the Directive draws heavily on existing UK provisions. This fact, and the complete absence of national press comment when the Directive was agreed, might suggest that it is of minimal importance. Such a view is apparently held by the EC Commission President Jacques Delors, who told the European Parliament in December 1991 that 'two years of the Social Charter had not resulted in the approval of one single important text'.2 In this article, however, we will argue (i) that the provision of information to employees about the main terms of their employment is a fundamental aspect of social policy (ii) that current UK law and practice are capable of improvement and in specific areas exhibit major deficiencies3 and (iii) that the Directive deserves to emerge out of obscurity to become a catalyst for reform. In this sense it can truly be regarded as a 'Cinderella Directive'. We begin by examining the main provisions of the Directive and the changes in UK law necessary to comply with its terms. We then identify a number of issues on which we suggest the UK should go beyond the minimum require* Respectively Professor of Industrial Relations and Senior Research Fellow, Industrial Relations Research Unit, University of Warwick. The Unit is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. The authors would like to thank Ira Chalphin (Department of Employment), Linda Dickens, Stephen Evans, Graham Mather, Cherry Mill, Brian Napier, Keith Sisson, Ian Smith, Bill Wedderburn and the editor for comments on an earlier draft. 1 Directive 91/533/EC; OJ No. L 288/32, 18.10.91. 2 The Week, 9-13 December 1991, PE 155.789, Brussels: European Parliament DirectorateGeneral for Information and Public Relations, p. 30. 3 See National Association of Citizens' Advice Bureaux (NACAB), Hard Labour (1990), especially pp. 5-8. The findings of the NACAB Report will be discussed further below. 106

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ments. We conclude by arguing that the Directive ought to prompt a general review—going significantly beyond the minor reforms outlined in the Conservative Government's 1992 White Paper, People, Jobs and Opportunity*—of what is a crucial but much neglected area of employment law and practice.

2. THE EC DIRECTIVE A. The Main Provisions Outlined In the Preamble to the Directive the EC Council identify a number of factors which led to its adoption. These include the development of new forms of work, the increasing diversity of types of employment, and the considerable disparities between member states' current rules on the provision of information to employees about the main terms of their employment. Against this background, the Directive is intended to provide employees with 'improved protection against possible infringement of their rights' and to create 'greater transparency' in the labour market. Under the Directive, employers will be obliged to provide employees with documents notifying them of the 'essential aspects' of their contract or employment relationship. The information required includes: place of work; job title or category, or a brief description of the work; amount of paid leave entitlement; relevant notice periods; rate and frequency of remuneration; working hours; and, where appropriate, the collective agreements governing the employees' conditions of work (Article 2). The information must be provided not later than two months after the commencement of employment, and can take the form of a written contract, a letter of engagement or one or more other documents, or a written declaration signed by the employer (Article 3). Employees must also be given a written document in respect of any modification of the terms of employment not later than one month after it takes effect, except where the change concerns regulations, collective agreements, etc., cited in the documents already provided (Article 5). The Directive applies to 'every paid employee having a contract or employment relationship defined by . . . and/or governed by the law in force in a Member State', though it is permissible to exclude temporary employment relationships of a month or less, employees with a working week not exceeding eight hours, and 'casual and/or specific' employment relationships where this is 'justified by objective considerations' (Article 1). Special information requirements apply in respect of employees working abroad for more than one month, who must be given the documentation required by the Directive prior to their 4

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departure. This must include additional information about the duration of their employment abroad; the currency to be used for payment; any benefits attendant on employment abroad; and any conditions governing their repatriation (Article 4). In the case of existing employees at the time when national provisions to comply with the Directive take effect, employers must provide the information required within two months of receiving a request (Article 9(2)). B. Changes from the Original Proposal The text adopted by the Council of Ministers differs in a number of important respects from the original Commission proposal,5 though the opinion of the European Parliament was formulated too late to have a material influence on the Council's deliberations. Key changes were the result of the UK Government's attempt to minimize the extent to which the Directive would place additional obligations on employers or require amendments to existing legal provisions (as contained in sections 1-11 of the Employment Protection (Consolidation) Act 1978). For example, the Commission initially proposed a one month deadline within which employers must issue the relevant information to employees, whereas existing UK legislation (EPCA 1978, s 1(1) specifies thirteen weeks. The Council of Ministers agreed effectively to split the difference, resulting in a compromise figure of two months. Similarly, although the Commission proposed that the documentation provided to employees should include a 'description of the job and category of employment', the Directive uses a more flexible formula enabling a simple reference to job title, which is how current UK legislation on this point is framed (EPCA 1978, s l(3)(f)). Moreover, contrary to the Commission's original proposal for a 'form of proof of an employment relationship', the Directive adopted by the Council provides expressly that it is 'without prejudice' to national law and practice concerning proof of the existence and content of a contract of employment (Article 6). Under UK case law, the written statement of particulars provides 'very strong prima facie evidence' of the terms of the contract, but 'does not constitute a written contract between the parties' (Browne-Wilkinson J in System Floors (UK) Ltd v Daniel6). This recognition that written particulars are essentially the employer's own version of the main terms of the employment relationship provides an important safeguard for the employee against the assumption that the employer's unilateral statement is a legally binding record of contractual obligations.7 5

O J N o . C 24, 31.1.1991, p. 3. [1981] IRLR 475. 7 See on this Napier, 'The Contract of Employment', in Lewis (Ed.) Labour Law in Britain (1986), pp. 341-47; Smith and Wood, Industrial Law (4th edn, 1989) pp. 124-6. 6

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C. Direct Implications for UK Labour Law Despite these amendments, the UK Government abstained in the Council vote to adopt the Directive.8 It disputed the appropriateness of the chosen legal basis—Article 100 of the Treaty of Rome which deals with 'matters directly affecting the . . . functioning of the common market'—arguing that this Article does not give the Community competence to legislate in this area. In some ways, the Government's refusal to give its support was ironic since, alone among the employment law proposals in the Commission's Social Charter Action Programme, the Directive is based on current UK practice. Moreover, the UK Government 'supports the principle that, in general, employees should receive a written statement of the main terms and conditions of their employment'.9 Nevertheless, the Directive will clearly require a number of changes to current legal provisions which would have been unlikely without the external stimulus from the EC. Foremost among the changes required will be to give employees working between 8 and 16 hours a week, who currently—indefensibly—qualify for the right to a written statement only after five years' employment (EPCA 1978, s 146(7)), the same rights as employees working over 16 hours. Employers will now have to provide the necessary information within two months rather than 13 weeks, include particulars about the employee's place of work, and also provide additional information to employees required to work outside the UK for more than a month. The Conservative Government announced its intention to make these changes to the law in a pre-election White Paper published in February 1992 (see note 4). It would, however, be a wasted opportunity if, in implementing the new Directive, the UK Government did not initiate a more general review of current law and practice in this area. As the Directive itself makes clear, it 'shall not affect Member States' prerogative to apply or to introduce laws, regulations or administrative provisions which are more favourable to employees'. It is true that, in their White Paper, the Conservative Government invited views on two additional proposals: that basic terms of employment, and any subsequent changes to them, should be notified directly to employees in the written statement itself and not by reference to a collective agreement (para. 2.10); and that employees in firms with 20 or more employees who are entitled to a written statement should be entitled to an additional note of how their employer's training and development policy affects them as individuals (para. 2.14). 8 Under EC practice, as long as all Member States are present, this does not prevent the Council from 'acting unanimously' as is required under Article 100 of the Treaty of Rome. See Hartley, The Foundations of European Community Law (2nd edn, 1988), p. 16, n 38. 9 Department of Employment, Consultation Document on EC Proposal for a Directive on Form of Proof of an Employment Relationship (1991), p. 2.

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However, experience of the UK's current written statement provisions and considerations of good employment practice suggest that a wider reform of the law is required. In this respect it is heartening that a number of UK organisations, in their comments on the draft Directive,10 have also argued that the UK Government should go beyond the minimum requirements on a range of matters. It is to these that we will now turn.

3. THE WIDER LEGAL AND SOCIAL POLICY IMPLICATIONS OF THE DIRECTIVE A. Time Limit for Provision of Information As we have seen, the new Directive will reduce the time limit for provision of written information to employees to two months after the commencement of their employment. However, some UK employers' organizations have suggested that the time limit should be even shorter: for the Institute of Directors (IOD) 'as soon as possible after recruitment', while for the Institute of Personnel Management 'no later than 30 days'. Indeed, the European Parliament, in its proposed amendments to the draft Directive, suggested one week would be sufficient.11 As Smith and Wood note, it is common practice for UK employers to provide employees with their statement either on recruitment or at the latest on commencement of employment, often as part of a more general 'starter pack' for new employees.12 There would appear to be strong support, and strong grounds in terms of good employment practice, for the UK Government to introduce a time limit of 30 days rather than the two months required under the Directive.

B. Threshold for Information Rights Under UK law, employees normally working for less than 8 hours per week are excluded from the provisions of EPCA 1978, s 1. They remain excluded, along with other 'marginal' groups, under Article 1(2) of the new Directive. In its comments on the draft Directive, the IOD suggested that all employees should be provided with written statements, claiming that the proposal to exclude 10

CBI, Response to the Employment Department's Consultative Document (on the proposed Directive) (1991); ETUC, Note on the EC's Proposal for a Directive on the Provision of Proof of an Employment Contract or Relationship (1990); Institute of Directors, Opinion on the Proof of the Employment Relationship Directive (1991); IPM, Comments on the EC's Proposal for a Council Directive on a Form of Proof of the Employment Relationship; TUC, Consultation Document on the Directive on a Form of Proof of an Employment Relationship: TUC Response (1991). 11 OJNo. C240, 16.9.91, p. 21. 12 See Smith and Wood (1989), op. cit., p. 126.

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those working under 8 hours per week 'would inevitably lead to a bunching of employees just below the cut-off point. . . because many employers would seek to avoid the additional administrative cost involved'. The IPM, in contrast, did not consider that the provision of a written statement to employees not already covered would lead to a 'a significant or unacceptable cost for businesses', although it too was critical of thresholds, describing 'statutory cut-offs' as 'illogical, indefensible and based on outmoded concepts of the average hours constituting a working day/week'. The TUC also argued that those working fewer than 8 hours a week should be covered by the Directive, pointing out that 'in an age of word processors . . . it is relatively easy for employers to produce statements in a standard format'. As the declared aim of the Directive is to increase transparency in the labour market, there are grounds for suggesting that it is employees working under 8 hours a week (currently nearly 700,000 in the UK, around 80% of whom are women) who would gain most from being given a legal right to information about the main terms of their employment relationship. Indeed, although the British courts have recently adjudged that cut-off rules for entitlement to employee protection rights can be objectively justified (R v Secretary of State for Employment ex parte EOC12), it has been argued more widely in Europe, e.g. by the DGB, the West German TUC, that excluding such an overwhelmingly female group of employees from basic employment rights in this particular case could amount to indirect discrimination under Article 119 of the Treaty of Rome.14 The IPM has proposed two ways in which the provision of basic information to this group could be improved. The preferable way, in its view, would be to give 'all employees . . . the right to written confirmation of the main elements of their agreement with their employer, whatever hours they work'. Short of this, the IPM has suggested that employees working less than 8 hours should be given the right to ask for and receive such written confirmation. However, to put the onus on such employees to pursue their rights in this way would be to ignore their vulnerability to consequential dismissal (a point to which we return below). C. Substantive Information Requirements Apart from the new requirement to provide information about the employee's place of work, section 1 of the 1978 Act lists a wider range of substantive issues than the new Directive on which written particulars are required, including incapacity for work and sick pay, pension schemes, continuous employment, and, if the employer has 20 or more employees, disciplinary rules and grievance 13

[1991] IRLR 493. Stellungnahme zum Vorschlag der EC-Kommission fur eine Richllinie des Rales uber einen Nachweis fur Arbeitsverhaltnisse (1991). 14

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procedures.15 As to the question of the work to be carried out, the UK employer is currently obliged, as already noted, to include in the written statement the title of the job which the employee is employed to do. Although amendment to this aspect of British labour law is therefore not required by the Directive, there may be a case for considering some of the alternatives to job title provided for under Article 2(2)(c) (e.g. grade, nature, category, specification, or description of work). In their comments on the draft Directive, trade unions were generally in favour of fuller written information on work requirements (the ETUC, for example, argued for detailed information on jobs 'broken down analytically into duties'), while UK employers' organizations such as the CBI and IPM strongly resisted such an approach, arguing that moves towards single status employment and increased flexibility of labour have made detailed job categories restrictive and superfluous. However, undoubtedly the most radical proposal for expanding the provision of information on work requirements and terms of employment more generally has come from the then Director of the Institute of Economic Affairs, Graham Mather. He has argued that the new Directive represents a good opportunity to place an obligation on employers to provide employees with a detailed 'contract document' setting out clearly the terms and conditions on which they are employed, not only when they begin work, but also 'once a year thereafter'.16 Mather is highly critical of employers who do not provide employees with sufficient information of what is required of them and who prefer to rely on general and often vague collective agreements or corporate personnel policies. Where employers have failed, or do not meet 'recognised best practice' voluntarily, he regards it as 'legitimate and desirable' for government to legislate. It is clearly part of Mather's wider intention, and one that finds support in the Conservative Government's 1992 White Paper, to reduce the importance of collective bargaining and to promote individual negotiations between employers and employees with the aim of reconstructing industrial relations around the individual employment relationship. His proposal for the issuing of an annual 'contract document' would also seem to imply a highly controversial change in the status of written particulars—converting what is currently an employer's 'statement' into a legally binding 'contract'. This would give rise to two main concerns: that, in practice, it would increase the risk of employers seeking to set and change conditions of employment unilaterally; and that many employees 15

The company size threshold was introduced by the Employment Act 1989. Mather, Promoting Greater Use of Personal Employment Contracts (IEA, 1991); also idem, 'Where do we go from here?', Lecture to MA in Industrial Relations students at University of Warwick (November 1991), mimeo. 15

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would 'find themselves bound by onerous terms of the contract either through carelessness of their rights or through lack of understanding of the position'.17 Yet Mather's specific suggestions for the amendment of current UK law are confined to proposing that written statements should be issued annually and that all relevant terms should be set out in the statement itself rather than in other documents referred to in it. Indeed he regards this more limited proposal as compatible with certain elements of an 'individual rights based unionism' advocated by some major trade unions (e.g. the GMB) and by the Labour Party. The latter, for example, is committed to enact a comprehensive framework of rights for employees in which trade unions would play a central role in ensuring that individual employees actually receive the rights to which they are legally entitled. Mather's more limited argument that employers should be required to provide a regular opportunity for employees to be made aware of the full terms of their employment relationship deserves to be taken seriously, both on the grounds of the individual employee's right to know and of the need for greater transparency in the labour market. Some alternative ways of dealing with this issue will be discussed further below. D. Discharge of Employer Obligations by Reference to Other Documents Under EPCA 1978, s 2(3) employers are allowed to discharge their obligations to provide a statement on all or any of the required particulars by referring the employee 'to some document which the employee has reasonable opportunities of reading in the course of his employment or which is made reasonably accessible to him in some other way'. Article 2(3) of the new Directive makes similar provision, although discharge of employer obligations in this way is limited to a specified number of matters, namely questions of paid leave, periods of notice, remuneration entitlements and working time; and there is no requirement in the Directive for 'reasonable accessibility'. As noted above, however, the Conservative Government's 1992 White Paper, in line with Mather's proposal, has suggested that basic terms of employment should be notified in writing to each employee directly and individually. This whole question has been the subject of extensive debate in the jurisprudential literature. Smith and Wood, for example, note that EPCA 1978, s 2(3) relieves the employer of an 'onerous burden', although they do recognize that this 'may detract from the aim of the statute'.18 Davies and Freedland argue, moreover, that this provision has 'created a habit amongst employers of referring to collective agreements, especially national-level ones, 17 Leighton and Dunville, 'From Statement to Contract—Some Effects of the Contracts of Employment Act 1972' (1977) 6 ILJ 138. 18 Smith and Wood, op. cit., p. 127.

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as sources of contractual terms, with little regard for the problem of the relationship between the collective agreement and the individual contract'.19 As a result, many employees only become aware of certain conditions of their employment, e.g. questions of holiday or sick pay entitlement, when a problem arises or a crisis occurs. Moreover, in their comments on the proposed new Directive, the IPM argued that 'it is desirable to include as much information as possible in the written statement provided to employees', while the IOD emphasized the importance of issuing a 'comprehensive' statement to employees. Against this background there would appear to be a strong case for strengthening current UK law to require employers to provide all employees individually with more comprehensive information relating to their employment, possibly in the form of a company handbook.20 Indeed, one subsection of the new Directive takes at least a step in this direction. Under Article 2(2)(j)(i), the employee must be notified, 'where appropriate', of 'the collective agreements governing the employees' conditions of work' (unless the collective agreement was concluded 'outside the business' by special joint bodies, in which case the employee can simply be given the name of the competent body). This means that all collective agreements concluded at establishment or company level and covering the employee's conditions of work must be 'notified' directly to each employee in their written statement, since Article 2(2)(j)(i) is not included in the list of matters on which the employer may discharge their obligations by reference to other documents. Of course, this still leaves open the question of what form the notification should take and which agreements (or parts of an agreement) would be appropriate to the employee's conditions of work, let alone which aspects of appropriate agreements the parties to the individual contract intended to incorporate in it. According to a recent judgment (Alexander v STC21), for example, the inference of incorporation may be difficult to sustain on matters such as compulsory redundancy which are deemed—rather incongruously in the current climate—not to be of 'present day-to-day relevance to the employer and employee'. Neither the requirement in the Directive nor the wider 1992 White Paper proposal would avoid the problem of needing to differentiate between 'contract' and 'prerogative',22 i.e. deciding in particular cases which aspects of a handbook 19

Davies and Freedland, Labour Law—Text and Materials (1984), p. 285. ACAS suggests that the provision of comprehensive written information to employees is best done through the issue of a company handbook, either loose leaf or with space in the back cover to hold additions, amendments and specific information relating to individual employees (see ACAS, The Company Handbook (1986)). According to ACAS company handbooks should contain basic information not only about employment matters, but also about the employing organization, procedures and policies, and amenities and services. 21 [1991] IRLR 286, paras 26 and 27. See on this general issue Wedderburn, The Worker and the Law (3rd edn, 1986), pp. 339-43. 22 The authors would like to thank Ian Smith for suggesting this formulation. 20

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or comprehensive statement were contractually unilateral expressions of managerial prerogative. handbook would at least give each employee a full by the employer, about the policies, rules and employment relationship.

binding and which were However, the issuing of a information base, provided conditions governing their

E. Written Information on Changes to Terms of Employment Under EPCA 1978, s 4(1) the employer is required to inform the employee of changes in terms of employment (covered in section 1) not more than one month after the change. Article 5(1) of the new Directive places an almost identical obligation on the employer, although the range of issues about which the employee must be notified is narrower. Under section 4(2) of the 1978 Act, however, employers may discharge their obligation to notify changes by referring employees to other documents. They may also indicate to employees in their written statement that future changes in terms (of which the particulars are given in other documents) will be entered up in those documents (s 4(3)). Broadly similar exemptions are allowed for in Article 5(2) of the Directive. The question of notification of changes touches on many of the same issues raised in the previous section, particularly when this duty is discharged by reference to other documents. The Conservative Government's 1992 White Paper proposes that employers should be required to notify any changes in writing directly to each individual employee. Our proposal for a greater use of company handbooks which are flexible enough to allow inclusion of amendments (see note 20) would be fully consistent with this approach. Additionally, it would be likely to promote greater transparency if employers were to be required to re-issue a comprehensive amended statement of main terms and conditions to employees (incorporating all changes made since first issue) at regular intervals—if not every year, as proposed by Mather, then at least every three or five years.23 F. Rights of Existing Employees Unlike some other member states, the UK will not be introducing written statement provisions for the first time to meet the requirements of the Directive. It would therefore be a retrograde step—and contrary to the spirit of the Social Charter—for the UK to seek to make the information rights of existing employees at the time UK law is amended conditional on making a request rather than remaining mandatory as at present. Moreover, employers are 23

See on this Leighton and Dunville (1978), op. cit., p. 148.

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unlikely to see much to be gained in practice from a dual system of rights to written statements—with new employees subject to one set of requirements and existing employees subject to another.

G. Enforcement and Sanctions The new Directive requires member states to provide an enforcement mechanism so that employees can pursue claims by judicial process if they consider they have been wronged by an employer's failure to comply with their obligations (Article 8). However, EPCA 1978, s 11 already provides such a mechanism by allowing an individual employee to complain to an industrial tribunal. In essence the tribunals have the power to supply particulars where they do not exist and to amend defective ones. Also, given that under Community law sanctions must be such as to 'guarantee real and effective judicial protection' and to have 'real deterrent effect on the employer', it is arguable that the tribunals should also have the power to provide remedies such as 'adequate' compensation for any loss suffered.24 However, ACAS data suggests that the recourse to tribunals on the issue of written particulars is minimal and confined exclusively to employee complaints about not receiving an itemized pay statement.25 Davies and Freedland have described the legal enforcement machinery in this area as both weak and impracticable.26 In practice, the outcome is that current legal sanctions are almost totally ineffective in the face of what, on the evidence of a recent report by the National Association of Citizens' Advice Bureaux (see note 3), appears to be a widespread failure by employers to provide employees with written statements. A CAB in Devon reported, for example, that 'an employee with a written statement. . . would, in the experience of this bureau, be very much the exception'; another in Shropshire said that, 'of the clients that come to us with employment problems, it is the norm rather than the exception that they have no written statement of terms and conditions'; while a CAB in Essex reported that a large number of their employment enquiries could be resolved by the employees 'if they had been given written statements'.27 Much of this appeared to be the result of employer ignorance of the law, although there were some cases of a demonstrable refusal to comply. 24 See [1984] E C R 1891 at 1908. On the general area of enforcement and sanctions under Community law, see Shaw, 'European Community Judicial Method: Its Application to Sex Discrimination Law', (1990) 19 ILJ 228, especially pp. 233-43. 25 See A C A S Annual Reports (1980-1990). During this decade A C A S reported no references under E P C A 1978 ss 1 or 4, which contain the core provisions on written particulars of, and changes in, terms of employment. 26 Davies and Freedland, op. cit., p. 277, 27 N A C A B (1990), op. cit., pp. 5-6.

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Various proposals have been made to remedy the weakness of the existing enforcement mechanism. The Contracts of Employment Act 1963 originally provided for a direct sanction (a criminal fine) against the employer for noncompliance. However, as Wedderburn has pointed out, this begged the question of who was going to enforce it against the employer, as the UK, unlike France, has no general 'labour inspectorate'.28 In 1965 the criminal sanction was replaced by the indirect sanction of individual complaint to a tribunal. Wedderburn has argued, like Davies and Freedland, that this has proved largely ineffective and should be replaced by a different enforcement agency, while the ETUC has suggested that 'administrative sanctions could be provided for breaches of obligations, with persistent breach being punished by graduated penalties'. Given the current 'individuated' approach of the law to enforcement,29 there is an understandable reluctance on the part of individual employees to pursue their statutory rights against their current employer. Accordingly, we would suggest that a more flexible, effective and perhaps more widely applicable approach would be to encourage a mix of improved statutory and voluntary enforcement mechanisms, including not only the existing legal right to pursue a claim in a tribunal (possibly with the new option of 'group actions'), but also statutory labour inspection, a more active role for trade unions in the implementation of employee rights, and the introduction of new sanctions for persistent abuse. There is, moreover, a clear and compelling need for legislative reform in one related area. Recent evidence collected by the NACAB (see note 3 above) included a number of cases where employers have actually dismissed employees who make or intend to make a complaint to a tribunal because they have not received a written statement. In their report the NACAB proposed an amendment to existing legislation which would guarantee protection against dismissal—irrespective of qualifying periods of employment—for those seeking to enforce the right to a written statement,30 a proposal strongly endorsed by the TUC in its comments on the draft Directive. On this issue, there would appear to be an incontrovertible case for early legislative amendment. Current race and sex discrimination legislation provides a clear precedent for such protection. Arguably, dismissal of an employee for seeking to enforce any statutory right should be an 'inadmissable reason'.

4. CONCLUSION The new Directive requires the Government to make a number of changes to 28 29 30

Wedderburn (1986), op. cit., p. 139. See on this Davies and Freedland, op. cit., p. 279ff. N A C A B (1990), op. cit., pp. 2, 7-8.

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existing UK law on written particulars of the main terms of employment. There is, moreover, disturbing recent evidence as to the ineffectiveness of current legislation. Against this background, the adoption of the new Directive provides a golden opportunity to review all current UK provisions in this area of industrial relations. To this end, we have outlined in this article a number of areas for legislative reform. Amendments to the law will also need to be accompanied by a major publicity campaign designed to increase awareness of current legal requirements and good practice in this area. At a time when both main political parties are committed to providing 'charters'—whether for citizens, rail passengers, patients, parents, or, in Labour's case, for employees—the need to ensure that the 21 million employees in this country have fuller and clearer information about their rights and obligations in the employment relationship cannot be ignored. If only some of these proposals are acted upon, the Cinderella Directive could become a catalyst for uncontroversial but necessary reforms, not just of the law, but of industrial relations and employment practice, too.

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