DE-DEMOCRATISING THE WORKPLACE: UK EMPLOYMENT LAW AS CONSTITUTIONAL PROJECT FROM VOLUNTARISM TO MANAGED INEQUALITY

AUTHOR – TADGH QUILL-MANLEY. STUDENT AT KING’S INNS

BEST CITATION – TADGH QUILL-MANLEY, DE-DEMOCRATISING THE WORKPLACE: UK EMPLOYMENT LAW AS CONSTITUTIONAL PROJECT FROM VOLUNTARISM TO MANAGED INEQUALITY, INDIAN JOURNAL OF LEGAL REVIEW (IJLR), 6 (1) OF 2026, PG. 705-723, APIS – 3920 – 0001 & ISSN – 2583-2344. DOI – https://doi.org/10.65393/CVGO1594

Abstract

By arguing that employment law changed from postwar voluntarism to a purposeful constitutional project that subordinated collective worker voice to executive and managerial authority, this article critically examines the decline of industrial democracy in the UK. Important interventions that enacted authoritarian legalism rather than neutral regulation, such as the Industrial Relations Act of 1971, the Trade Union Acts of 1984 and 2016, and the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act of 2023, substituted procedural compliance for substantive participation. The article frames this trajectory as de-democratisation of the economic sphere, leaving workplaces as areas of private despotism despite formal political democracy, drawing on Schmittian sovereignty concepts and research on authoritarianism in labour governance. The Employment Rights Act 2025 partially reverses this by repealing the 2023 Act immediately, relaxing ballot thresholds and notice rules, banning exploitative zero-hours contracts, introducing day-one unfair dismissal rights, and strengthening union recognition and protections against fire-and-rehire and harassment. These reforms are still primarily defensive and procedural, despite the fact that they promise benefits for more than 18 million workers, productivity increases, and closer OECD alignment. Instead of attaining true democratic reopening, the Act liberalises within neoliberal bounds in the absence of codetermination, mandatory sectoral bargaining, or constitutionally guaranteed participation. Two arguments are made by the analysis: first, collective power has been constitutively disciplined by UK employment law; and second, even recent progressive changes highlight enduring structural limitations. In order to address the disparity between economic power and democratic accountability, true industrial democracy necessitates rethinking the workplace as a constitutional polity, casting doubt on the validity of Britain’s uncodified constitution.