Employment Contract in UK Law

If the only real redress is damages, how can its measure or scope be affected according to whether the contract is regarded as still subsisting or as at an end? To preserve the bare contractual relationship is an empty formality. The difference is fundamental, for there is no legal substitute for voluntary performance.

I would define it as the relationship of employer and employee where the following circumstances obtain: (1) the terms of the contract of employment have not been negotiated with the individual employee but result from negotiation with a representative body or are otherwise incorporated by reference; (2) a particular term of the contract makes available to the employee a valuable right contingent upon action being taken by him to avail himself of its benefit; (3) the employee cannot, in all the circumstances, reasonably be expected to be aware of the term unless it is drawn to his attention.

Suppose, however, that the master insists on the employment terminating on the named day? In the ordinary course of things, the relationship of master and servant thereupon comes to an end: for it is inconsistent with the confidential nature of the relationship that it should continue contrary to the will of one of the parties thereto As Lord Kilmuir said in Vine v. National Dock Labour Board (1957) A. C., referring at page 500 to the ordinary master and servant case:

Since in any event the duty in question is one which exists by imputation or implication of law and not by virtue of any express negotiation between the parties, I should be inclined to say that there is no real disinction between the two possible sources of obligation.

Putting the question in the traditional terms of the conflict of laws, what connection between Great Britain and the employment relationship is required to make section 94(1) the appropriate choice of law in deciding whether and in what circumstances an employee can complain that his dismissal was unfair?

It is a non sequitur to say that because an employer is under a duty to an employee not to cause him physical injury, the employer should as a necessary consequence of that duty (of which there is no breach) be under a duty not to cause the employee psychiatric injury: see Hilson, Nervous Shock and Categorization of Victims, [1998] Tort L.R. 37, at 42. The rules to be applied when an employee brings an action against his employer for harm suffered at his workplace are the rules of tort.

If theemployer is guilty of conduct which is a significant breach going to the root of the contract of employment; or which shows that the employer no longer intends to be bound by one or more of the essential terms of the contract; then the employee is entitled to treat himself as discharged from any further performance. If he does so, then he terminates the contract by reason of the employer's conduct.