Pascal Lokiec is a law professor at Paris-Ouest Nanterre-La Défense University. An agrégé specialising in social law, he has written several works on the subject.

Should social thresholds in France be lowered to encourage hiring? Should rules against work on Sundays be relaxed to stimulate commerce? And to what extent should labour laws be cut back for the sake of sacrosanct competition? How can we fail to understand that new management tactics — from benchmarking to forced ranking and lean management — undermine the protection of the workforce?
Arguing against current trends, the author offers a carefully reasoned defence of labour law. Without denying its financial cost or its complexity, he shows that subordination lies at the heart of labour relations, and that, as such and in the interests of all concerned, it must be regulated. The author argues that salaried jobs will not come to an end in the near future and that there are limits to entrepreneurship. Drawing on a great body of jurisprudence, he denounces such tactics as outsourcing and job-sharing, which are used by business enterprises to circumvent labour laws. But he also shows that there has been substantial success in countering these tactics, thanks to increasing legal recourse to fundamental rights.
The lesson to be drawn from this book is that workers’ health and the quality of their work — which are safeguarded by labour laws — do not in any way hinder productivity.

• A book that makes labour law widely accessible and demonstrates its raison d’être.
• A politically committed, well-argued work in defence of an original position.