A remedies perspective on labour law, wealth and inequality : a response to ACL Davies

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Zahn, Rebecca (2025) A remedies perspective on labour law, wealth and inequality : a response to ACL Davies. Edinburgh Law Review, 29 (2). pp. 279-283. ISSN 1364-9809 (https://doi.org/10.3366/elr.2025.0962)

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Abstract

In her paper, ACL Davies considers the policy choices relating to remedies for breaches of employment rights and what role these play in the generation or maintenance of inequality. Her paper covers a subject-matter which has received limited, focused attention in the academic literature to date; remedies have tended to be discussed alongside the relevant right and few have considered the extent to which employment remedies contribute towards, or exacerbate inequalities in society. Davies’s paper breaks new ground by giving an insight into some of the arguments which she has explored further in her recently published book: ACL Davies, Valuing Employment Rights. A Study of Remedies in Employment Law. The word “remedies”, in this context, refers to “the ‘relief’ a claimant can obtain from a court of tribunal” following a breach of their “employment rights”, defined loosely as “the substantive entitlement of a working person … that the employer does or does not do something in relation to them.” Davies’s particular focus is on those remedies awarded by courts or tribunals. Using several examples (the rules on compensation, access to justice, the cap on damages in unfair dismissal claims, and the case law on damages for lost future earnings), Davies teases out two themes. First, the way in which remedies are designed and awarded largely reflects existing inequalities of wealth: those with greater wealth tend to have access to and obtain better remedies; the most obvious example being in respect of compensation in discrimination and unfair dismissal claims. As compensation is there to make good the employee’s losses and these are inherently linked to earnings, better off employees tend to be awarded higher compensation. Second, Davies suggests that working people’s access to some remedies, exemplified by the statutory cap on compensation in unfair dismissal and the judicial decisions in Addis, Johnson and Edwards, is less generous than would be the case if normal contractual approaches were to apply.

ORCID iDs

Zahn, Rebecca ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9378-5772;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)