Industrial Relations and Labour Law

In this article, it is argued that Bill McCarthy's work in the field of industrial relations brought him into a profound engagement with labour law, despite his initial commitment to the credo of 'collective laissez-faire' with its assertion of a minimal role for labour law in that field. His approach to the post-1970 developments in labour law was an essentially pragmatic and empirical one, but he maintained the ideals of social justice and collective solidarity and continued to suggest ways in which labour law could best be harnessed to the service of those ideals.