A survey of labour market adjustment under the Employment Contracts Act 1991

"... In May 1991 the Government introduced the Employment Contracts Act. The overriding objective of the Act is to improve the adaptability of enterprises to the new marketplace. This is to be achieved by conferring a number of "freedoms" on employers and employees to choose the type of contract they negotiate and who should represent them in the bargaining process. By removing the automatic rights of third parties (trade unions), it was hoped that employers and employees within one company would work more closely together to provide products and services that are competitive. With the ending of national awards and deregulation of the labour market many of the information sources avaialable to the Department of Labour for monitoring labour market trends were lost. The Department of Labour Industrial Relations Service is required to monitor the rate of adjustment in the labour market following from the Employment Contracts Act and in March 1992 invited tenders from a number of sources for a measurement survey. The Heylen Research Centr and Teesdale Meuli & Co. were commissioned to conduct the measurement survey in May 1992." -- Introduction (pages 1-2).