I am head of the labour law department. I am course director for the upper-level elective courses, Equality Law, Comparative Law and American and English Business Law.

My areas of research include labour and employment law, discrimination law, access to justice, comparative law and academic freedom.

I am currently working on several projects. I am the editor-in-chief of the Brill Research Perspectives in Comparative Discrimination Law, which is published up to four times a year. I am co-editor for Sage's International Journal of Discrimination and the Law. I am also a co-editor for a multi-volume encyclopedia om equality to be published by Edgar Elgar 2026.  I am also co-director for the Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality & Antidiscrimination Law ditigal justice working group. 

I have had several book projects in the past years: co-editor and author for Bridging the Gender Pay Gap published 2024 by Edgar Elgar, volume editor and author for vol. 68 i Scandinavian Studies in Law om Equality (2022), co-editor and author for the anthology, Trans Rights and Wrongs (Springer 2021), author of a chapter in #MeToo and Sweden in Ann Noel (ed.), The Worldwide #MeToo Movement: Global Resistance to Sexual Harassment (2020), and a chapter on Access to Justice in Barbara Havelkova and Mathias Möschel (eds.), Anti-discrimination Law in Civil Jurisdictions (Oxford University Press) 2019, among other publications.

My latest reserach project, Workers, Collectivism and the Law: Grappling with Democracy - A Comparative Legal Study of the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden and the United States, was published by Edward Elgar Publishing in 2018.

Research Financing

Prior to the HRjust project named above, I together with Prof. Cecilia Magnusson Sjöberg, in 2017 completed the project, Employment law, copyright and privacy protection concerns as raised by teaching in digital environments, which was granted SEK 5.3 million by the Stiftelsen Marcus och Amalia Wallenbergs Minnesfond in 2012. The final book, The Wired World of University Teaching – Legal Challenges, was published by Ex Tuto in the summer of 2017. I was responsible for the policy section in the seventh framework EU research project, FamiliesAndSocieties - Changing families and sustainable societies: Policy contexts and diversity over the life course and across generations (€ 6.5 million during 2013-2017), which report also came out in 2017, familiesandsocieties.eu. I was also a researcher in the EU project ADPOLIS – Antidiscrimination policies successfully implemented. The project dealt with the success factors of policies against racial or ethnic discrimination that are already implemented in European cities amd was completed in the spring of 2018.

I have been a National Reporter several times, two of my favorite being EU projects within central labour law (the right to strike and the mandate of the union) administered by CGIL, an umbrella labour organization in Rome. I have also been a researcher in another seventh framework EU project, RECWOWE (2006-2012), Reconciling Work and Welfare, www.recwowe.eu.

Research Stays

I was the Stockholm Centre Oxford Fellow 2014/15 at the Institute of European and Comparative Law, Oxford Faculty of Law and ChristChurch.

Conferences

I hosted the Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality and Antidiscrimination Law two-day conference at Stockholm University in 2019, with more than 60 speakers and 200 participants.

During 2020 and 2021 I have organized and participated in several conferences including on the topics of sexual harassment, and Covid & Equality particularly race.

Outreach

I am the Director of Outreach for the Law Schools Global League (lawschoolsgloballeague.com). I am a member of the Board for the European Women Lawyers Association (EWLA.org) as well as for the Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality and Anti-discrimination Law (BCCE,https://www.law.berkeley.edu/research/berkeley-center-on-comparative-equality-anti-discrimination-law/). 

I have also participated in drafting legislative opinions and in 2020 submitted a report to the legislative Commisson on Equal Life Incomes.

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

• Access to Justice and a resilient institutional structure under the EU Pay Transparency Directive

  2024. Laura Carlson. Revue de Droit du Travail 2, 134-147

  Article

  The 2023 EU Pay Transparency Directive is ground-breaking in two significant aspects: first, in using pay transparency at the EU and Member State levels as a tool to tackle gender-based discrimination and gender biases in pay settings, both on individual as well as structural levels; and second – and the major focus of this article – by placing greater emphasis on procedure to ensure victims’ access to justice through the enforcement of pay claims. The latter is to be achieved through an institutional structure involving the private individuals affected, civil society in the form of labour unions and worker representatives, and the public through equality bodies and labour inspectorates. 

  This strengthening of access to justice, and the invocation of both collective and individual claims through private and public enforcement presents different challenges to the EU Member States depending upon the national industrial relations constellation in place, as well as the roles exercised by government agencies, equality bodies and labour inspectorates, and non-governmental organisations, such as labour unions and civil society in general. In labour markets where, to a large extent, the social partners set wages, such as in the Nordic countries, empowering individuals through access to justice changes the power dynamics of wage-setting. In jurisdictions such as the United Kingdom, where private enforcement has historically been essential, the labour unions have acted as facilitators, for example by funding collective actions concerning pay, as seen with the recent Asda case. The avenues of enforcement as well as remedies also vary greatly between the Member States. 

  This article first addresses the directive’s pay transparency requirements more briefly. The thrust of the discussion here is on the directive’s second half, the strengthened access to justice mechanisms as well as the quartet approach of the individual, worker representatives, equality bodies and labour inspectorates. 

  Read more about Access to Justice and a resilient institutional structure under the EU Pay Transparency Directive

• Bridging the Gender Pay Gap through Transparency: Comparative Approaches and Key Regulatory Conundrums

  2024. .

  Book (ed)

  This timely book evaluates the advantages and challenges of adopting pay transparency legislation (PTL) to address the ongoing issues of the gender pay gap. Chapters contextually examine whether PTL can help reduce the gender pay gap and discuss which factors should be considered to potentially boost the effects of this legal intervention.

  The editors have brought together expert contributors to explore detailed case studies demonstrating how PTL is implemented across the globe. The 2023 EU Pay Transparency Directive is rigorously analyzed in addition to the role of Equality Bodies and private certification systems. The book provides an in-depth yet accessible critique of both the potential and limitations of PTL and considers key themes including the role of self-regulation, collective bargaining and the need to depart from traditional work and care patterns to address pay inequity.

  Bridging the Gender Pay Gap through Transparency is an excellent resource for legal scholars and practitioners specialising in gender equality and labour rights. Students and researchers of gender studies, governance and regulation as well as policymakers and HR professionals will find the comprehensive analysis beneficial.

  Read more about Bridging the Gender Pay Gap through Transparency

• Editorial - June 2024

  2024. Laura Carlson, James Hand, Panos Kapotas. International Journal of Discrimination and the Law 24 (1-2), 3-6

  Article

  As we write this introduction, equality and discrimination are much in the news - for good or ill. Hate crimes have surged in a number of western countries, partly attributable to the appalling situation in Gaza;1 the legality of new anti-homosexual legislation is before the courts in Uganda (where the Supreme Court has just upheld most of the Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2023)2 and Ghana (a Bill having been passed at the end of February but which awaits a Supreme Court ruling and perhaps a presidential veto);3 and EDI or DEI seems to be a target of the apparent ‘culture wars’ ahead of the US and UK elections.4 More progressively, Thailand looks set to become the first country in south east Asia to fully legalise same-sex marriage after the lower house overwhelmingly supported a marriage equality bill.5 Furthermore, Women’s History Month has just drawn to a close, as has, within Legal Academia, the 34th Annual Conference of the Socio-Legal Studies Association (SLSA) which this year was hosted at the University of Portsmouth and which included a number of equality papers within and beyond its Equality and Human Rights stream. The SLSA, a charitable organisation that aims to advance education and research in the field of socio-legal studies, has a membership of over 1700 people across 20 countries. As stated on this Journal’s Aims and Scope web page, ‘[t]he International Journal of Discrimination and the Law (IJDL) presents research that engages critically with the broad field of discrimination, equality and law. The journal provides a forum for consideration of this highly topical area from a broad range of perspectives (including doctrinal, conceptual and socio-legal research)’ and we were delighted to be afforded the opportunity to promote the journal at the conference.

  Read more about Editorial - June 2024

• Introduction: Pay inequity - old problems, new solutions?

  2024. Laura Carlson, Sara Benedi Lahuerta, Katharina Miller. Bridging the Gender Pay Gap through Transparency:, 1-32

  Chapter

  Gender equity generally has improved significantly in recent decades in many ways. Women have massively joined the labour market, achieved recognition of their equal rights, begun to overtake men in higher education, controlled their fertility, and started pursuing long term careers, albeit depending on where in the world they live. Gender pay inequity, manifested in part by the Gender Pay Gap (GPG), is however a persistent problem worldwide. The OECD Gender Income Gap still stands at 48%  and the Gender Pension Gap at 25%.  Recognising the challenge of effectively tackling the GPG, the UN has included gender pay equity in its 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (Target 8.5) and has created the ‘Equal Pay International Coalition’ to close the GPG and achieve pay equity.

  Can gender pay inequity be addressed more effectively? Academics, practitioners and policymakers have become more aware of the limits of equal pay legislation in tackling pay inequity: the consensus is that the remedial and individual nature of equal pay litigation alone is incapable of addressing the structural causes of the latter.  Reducing gender pay inequity requires a holistic approach that cannot only rely solely on legal interventions.  Pay Transparency Legislation (PTL) is increasingly being seen as a tool that can help address pay inequity more effectively. This book takes up examples of current and future PTL as well as other approaches to the GPG from comparative perspectives.

  Read more about Introduction: Pay inequity - old problems, new solutions?

• Teaching Law Across Six Continents

  2024. David Oppenheimer, Panos Kapotas, Laura Carlson. Journal of Legal Education 72 (1), 113-137

  Article

  Many of us who teach law as an academic subject do so to see that spark in the eyes of our students; a spark of understanding the law, as well as its enormous transformative potential; a spark communicating the desire to help others and the passion to bring about societal change. Igniting that spark seemed destined to become ever more difficult during the pandemic, with the shift away fromface-to-face teaching amid the new digital reality. This was especially evidentwhen teaching equality law against the backdrop of growing inequalities laidbare by the impact of COVID-19 across the globe. Our two courses proved us correct in hoping that the decision to move forward based on the “a crisis is aterrible thing to waste” adage would result in creating something good.The objective of this article is to share our experiences in teaching law digitally across geographic and institutional borders and to offer some insights into how this model may become a new paradigm for the teaching of (equality) law. The experience of the pandemic has precipitated the radical rethinking of how to teach law as an academic subject; hopefully our journey will provide some food for thought and, maybe, some inspiration for other colleagues and institutions to follow suit.

  Read more about Teaching Law Across Six Continents

• With or without the social partners?: Addressing the gender pay gap in Sweden

  2024. Laura Carlson. Bridging the Gender Pay Gap through Transparency, 103-122

  Chapter

  This chapter takes up the tension between corporatism and individualism with respect to the Gender Pay Gap (GPG) in line with this volume’s theme of experiences on key gender pay transparency regulatory conundrums. Specifically, this chapter discusses equal pay in the area of employment discrimination protections as addressed by the Swedish labour unions. The Swedish labour law model has long seen itself as a highly-satisfactory balance between the social partners, employers and employee organizations. The social partners under this model regulate the terms and conditions of the labour market, including wage-setting, preferably without state interference in the form of legislation. The GPG has been a focus of the Swedish social partners for over fifty years, since the 1970s, and explicitly addressed in legislation since 1991. Despite this, Sweden is placed just under the EU GPG average of 12.7%, with an 11.2% GPG according to EuroStat. Tracked historically, this is actually a decrease in Sweden’s GPG positioning within the EU member states. Several countries who had lagged behind Sweden historically have now surpassed it in the lowering of their GPGs, namely Spain, Belgium, Poland, Italy, Slovenia, Luxembourg, and particularly Belgium, the latter as described in more detail in the next chapter. 

  The tension between the corporatism of the Swedish labour law model and the individualism of discrimination protections, including equal pay, can be seen, at least in part, as contributing to Sweden’s relative decrease historically in the overall EU Member States ranking on the GPG. This tension is explored in this chapter as follows: the Swedish historical and current treatments of equal pay are examined next, with section three taking up access to justice components in the EU pay transparency directive. In section four the conundrum between the Swedish labour model corporatism and the EU individual empowerment is analysed against the approach of reflexive labour law presented above in Chapter 2 of this volume. 

  Read more about With or without the social partners?

• The Perspectives of Legal Regulations and Employee Voice: Insights from Sweden

  2023. Laura Carlson. Employee Voice in the Global North, 111-140

  Chapter

  Taking readers through the nature and realities of employee voice across the Global North, this book identifies the significance and effects of contexts, cultures, web and social media, and dissimilarity of institutional factors in enhancing employee voice or promoting silence. It addresses general issues affecting employee voice across the globe to give readers an understanding of employee relations that is country-specific. Readers will also have an understanding of the unique nature of employee voice in three continents – thus broadening the readers’ understanding of the subject. Covering employee voice in different countries of Europe, North America and Australasia, each chapter draws out the unique and diverse nature of employee voice in each country. The chapters discuss issues ranging from culture, activities of trade union, institutional factors, web and social media, social and organisational justice and their effects of employee voice.

  This book provides an invaluable resource for students and researchers of human resources and international business. It will also be of great interest to HRM practitioners, policymakers and business managers across the globe.

  Read more about The Perspectives of Legal Regulations and Employee Voice

• Equality

  2022. .

  Book (ed)

  Isssues of equality have been radically brought to the forefront by #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, The Covid-19 Pandemic and climate justice, in a period of less than five years. The structural discrimination identified in these different contestations has raised more questions than can be answered with the legal treatment of equality. In this sixty-eighth volume in the series, Scandinavian Studies in Law, nineteen authors take up some of these questions, examination equality under the law in the Scandinavian legal context. 

  The anthology is structured around four different aspets of equality: theoretical and international frameworks for equality, protected grounds, protected areas and enforcement on the national levels.

  Read more about Equality

• Sweden - Balancing Corporatism and Access to Justice

  2022. Laura Carlson. Equality, 403-424

  Chapter

  This chapter examines the efficacy of the Swedish labour law model with respect to employment discrimination protections against the parameters of access to justice. Consequently, the discussion below begins with defining access to justice, then the Swedish labour law model. The question is whether corporatism can be balanced with access to justice in questions of human rights protections

  Read more about Sweden - Balancing Corporatism and Access to Justice

• The EU pay transparency proposed directive – general overview and some comments on the rules on enforcement and sanctions

  2022. Laura Carlson. European equality law review 2, 1-20

  Article

  Read more about The EU pay transparency proposed directive – general overview and some comments on the rules on enforcement and sanctions

• The Paradox of Trans Law in Sweden

  2022. Laura Carlson. Trans Rights and Wrongs, 541-558

  Chapter

  Sweden was the first country in the world to allow a person to legally change gender in 1972. At the same time, the requirements under the 1972 act for changing gender included being unmarried, a Swedish citizen and infertile. The latter in most cases entailed sterilization surgery, a requirement in place until 2013. A trend can be detected in the Swedish legal system during the period from 1972 to 2013 to a greater focus on individual rights generally, as well as specific attention being given to the legal parameters affecting trans persons. The current law has been amended to a certain degree, such as the removal of the requirement of infertility, but the lawmaker has retained several controversial aspects, the social security numbering system disclosing sex (and age), as well as a gendered concept of legal parenthood based on a mother and a father. New legislative inquiries have been called for with respect to trans issues entailing that Swedish law can be seen as still in a period of flux as to fully recognizing needs and achieving trans legal solutions.

  Read more about The Paradox of Trans Law in Sweden

• The Paris Principles, NHRIs, and Enabling Legal Frameworks

  2021. Laura Carlson. Rutgers International Law and Human Rights Journal 2 (1), 91-134

  Article

  This article examines four national enforcement models with respect to employment discrimination claims against the requirement of enabling legal frameworks for National Human Rights Institutions (“NHRIs”) set out under the Paris Principles. The four models identified are the private enforcement as typified by the United Kingdom, hybrid agency-private enforcement as seen in the United States, the works councils model as originated in Germany, and the corporatist model as found in the Swedish labor law model. This comparative analysis leads to the conclusion that the work of NHRIs in promoting and protecting human rights in the context of employment discrimination protections must rest upon a legal framework that enables individuals and civil society to bring discrimination, and more broadly, human rights claims. States cannot have a monopoly with respect to areas of challenge concerning discrimination, but rather, individuals must be enabled to bring claims and thus contribute to defining the areas of concern regarding discrimination.

  Read more about The Paris Principles, NHRIs, and Enabling Legal Frameworks

• Trans Rights and Wrongs: A Comparative Study of Legal Reform Concerning Trans Persons

  2021. .

  Book (ed)

  This book maps various national legal responses to gender mobility, including sex and name registration, access to gender modification interventions, and anti-discrimination protection (or lack thereof) and regulations. The importance of the underlying legislation and history is underlined in order to understand the law’s functions concerning discrimination, exclusion, and violence, as well as the problematic nature of introducing biology into the regulation of human relations, and using it to justify pain and suffering. The respective chapters also highlight how various governmental authorities, as well as civil society, have been integral in fostering or impeding the welfare of trans persons, from judges and legislators, to medical commissions and law students. A collective effort of scholars scattered around the globe, this book recognizes the international trend toward self-determination in sex classification and a generous guarantee of rights for individuals expressing diverse gender identities. The book advocates the dissemination of a model for the protection of rights that not only focuses on formal equality, but also addresses the administrative obstacles that trans persons face in their daily lives. In addition, it underscores the importance of courts in either advancing or obstructing the realization of individual rights.

  Read more about Trans Rights and Wrongs

• Unravelling equal pay - The EC's pay transparency proposal in a Swedish context

  2021. Laura Carlson. Juridisk Tidskrift 2, 320-343

  Article

  This article addresses the Commission’s proposal as to wage transparency and enforcement mechanisms against the context of the Swedish historical treatment of equal pay, the current legislation and case law, and the wage formation procedures of the social partners. The EC proposal challenges the Swedish labour law model in several ways, with the focus here on wage transparency and access  to justice mechanisms as empowering individuals. The Swedish approach has  been very much characterized by its corporatist labour law model, while the EU  and the Commission have been consistently working more and more towards  empowering the individual in discrimination claims generally and here with  stronger enforcement mechanisms consistent with access to justice.  

  Read more about Unravelling equal pay - The EC's pay transparency proposal in a Swedish context

• Over 75,000 Voices Raised in Sweden

  2020. Laura Carlson. The Global #MeToo Movement, 171-180

  Chapter

  In The Global #MeToo Movement, produced by the Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality and Non-Discrimination Law, 48 authors from 28 countries spanning nearly every continent tell the story of how social media has driven a movement against sexual harassment, and how the law has responded, often by helping men pushback with defamation lawsuits. 

  Read more about Over 75,000 Voices Raised in Sweden

• The Intersections of Equality, Welfare and Democracy in Sweden

  2020. Laura Carlson. Rechtsvergleichung und Rechtsvereinheitlichung 71, 125-157

  Article

  This article examines the historical legal treatment of equality and its presentdayprotections against the backgrounds of welfare, democracy and access tojustice. This first part begins with the historical development and legal treatmentof equality, democracy and local government, moving over to the Swedishlabor law model and the “folk home” that created the Swedish welfare state, andthen to the current Swedish discrimination legislation. Access to justice is thenaddressed, seen here as the necessary mechanism for achieving both formal andsubstantive equality, followed by a discussion as to what type of equality is beingprotected and promoted by the law.

  Read more about The Intersections of Equality, Welfare and Democracy in Sweden

• Access to Justice in Labor Law: The Key to Social Welfare

  2019. Laura Carlson. Labour law and the welfare state, 231-248

  Chapter

  In Chapter 12, ‘Access to Justice’, Laura Carlson argues that stronger access to justice rights need to be in place in order for individuals in general to be able to partake of the social welfare rights and protections existing under Swedish legislation as well as collective agreements. Many of the social welfare benefits in Sweden are based on employment twice over. First is the government policy that employment itself should be basis for certain social welfare benefits (arbetslinje), including state benefits such as parental leave pay, sick pay, unemployment insurance and pensions. Any state social benefits granted under these state schemes are income-based. Where an eligible income is not present, subsistence levels are in place for most state social welfare benefits. The dividing line between subsistence level support and the social welfare protections envisioned by the lawmaker is gainful employment. And to have gainful employment, access to justice must be facilitated in order for individuals to be protected against unlawful employment discrimination. In the Swedish context of employment law, these individualistic rights, access to justice and protections against unlawful employment discrimination are juxtaposed against a labour law model based on corporatism-collectivism and an understanding of justice and law formed by Scandinavian Legal Realism. This chapter explores this juxtaposition, first setting out the collective Swedish labour model, and then against this background, examining access to justice issues in the context of employment discrimination.

  Read more about Access to Justice in Labor Law

• NHRIs and the need for a Robust Legal Framework for human rights defenders

  2019. Laura Carlson.

  Conference

  Read more about NHRIs and the need for a Robust Legal Framework for human rights defenders

• Rethinking Equal Pay in Sweden In Light of the Transparency Approaches in the UK and Iceland

  2019. Laura Carlson. Festskrift till Örjan Edström, 77-89

  Chapter

  The question can be raised whether there is a need in Sweden to work with issues of equal pay. The gender wage gap (GWG) statistics in Sweden are fairly consistent. According to the OECD gender wage gap 2014, the Swedish GWG is about 14%. According to Eurostat 2016, the Swedish GWG is 13.3 % (placing Sweden 10th among the 28 EU member states). Causes for the Swedish wage gap of 13.3% have been analyzed as 8 % due to occupational segregation and 2 % public employment. All indications point to the situation that women are mostly paid the same as men for the same work, but that pay equity issues, equal pay for comparable work are not as squarely addressed, with unions often representing male-dominated or female-dominated sectors in wage negotiations, basically reinforcing pay inequity as seen with from Swedish midwives cases discussed below. The recent Swedish legislative initiatives with respect to equal pay are compared here is the recent UK and Icelandic legislative initiatives concerning equal pay and greater transparency as to wages.

  Read more about Rethinking Equal Pay in Sweden In Light of the Transparency Approaches in the UK and Iceland

• Academic Freedom in the Age of Information Technology

  2018. Laura Carlson. Scandinavian Studies in Law 65, 39-56

  Article

  In this volume celebrating 50 years of information technology at the Department of Law, Stockholm University, it is fitting for two reasons to examine the interplay between information technology and academic freedom during this ground-breaking period for. First, without academic freedom, the legal academy would never have in general developed much beyond traditional Roman law subjects such as the law of obligations, and definitely not to include something as cutting-edge as information technology already in the 1970’s. The second is that information technology has changed the faces of both teaching and research, and thus the premises for academic freedom, both facilitating and obstructing its exercise by legal scholars. Two specific challenges raised to academic freedom will be addressed at the end, one with respect to teaching, the copyright to teaching materials and the other with respect to research, the protections of extramural utterances, both as facilitated by digitalization and social media.

  This article begins by briefly exploring the history of academic freedom, university research and teaching, as well as its modern legal protections, then goes over to the impact of information technology on academic freedom in four legal systems, the US, UK, Germany and Sweden. The need for the law regarding academic freedom to keep up with the technological-advances made in the past half century is not only self-evident, but also integral to future academic endeavors.

  Read more about Academic Freedom in the Age of Information Technology

• Workers, Collectivism and the Law: Grappling with Democracy

  2018. Laura Carlson.

  Book

  This comparative legal work highlights how employee voice, both collective and individual, assumes different guises in the legal and industrial relations models in the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden and the United States. At a time when labor rights are gaining status as human rights, a comparison of different systems, delineating the boundaries of such rights, is warranted by the protections sought and granted. The historical trajectories of the four systems have much affected the outcomes in the form of today’s national labor law models as well as those key issues still contested. The historical origins of collective worker organizations in the form originally of the guild system, expanded to journeymen associations, to the modern worker organizations are traced. A comparison of these different systems from the perspectives of employee voice and Habermas’ procedural democracy concludes the book. The origins of worker collectivism historically lie with the guilds, whose history spans continents and millennia. The Greek and Roman collegia provide examples of internal democracy, as well as external controls in the form of legislation limiting many aspects of trade, even the choice of whether to enter into a trade, with fathers and children consigned to continuing the family trade for the good of the Roman Empire. The three early European guild systems examined, English, Swedish and German, display similarities with respect to their development as well as internal self-regulation and provision of mutual aid. The guilds in this early period were pockets of democracy offering stability and support for their members in times of great social uncertainty and change.

  In England, the fourteenth century saw the rise of the English guilds and the sixteenth the beginning of their demise. The Reformation, with its acceptance of profit and the Crown’s need to control corporate bodies, paved the way for dissension between masters and journeymen that eventually resulted in legislative control of wages and work conditions. The delicate internal balance that had been democratically achieved within guilds, with equal rights and the consideration of the positions of apprentices and journeymen as future guild members, was abandoned for a structure where guild leaders, at least in the London Great Twelve, no longer even needed to have had practiced the trade in order to attain leadership. Freedom of trade and production as well as profits became the focus. The commodification of labor began, sowing the seeds for the modern understanding of employment. Journeymen organized to provide the mutual aid once given by the guilds. The seventeenth to twentieth centuries in the UK saw the death of the guilds, the rise of journeymen associations to provide former guild support and mutual aid, which functions were eventually assumed by trade unions. After a century of legislative persecution of worker combinations as unlawful conspiracies, the Trade Union Act 1871 invoked the technique of immunities facilitating collective action and bargaining. A system of collective laissez-faire was established, with the state setting floors through legislation with respect to work conditions, and the social partners using collective bargaining to flesh out these rights. This non-intervention by the state was however eradicated by Conservative legislation in the period between 1979-1999 with ever tighter regulation of trade unions in the conscious attempt to reduce their power. The past thirty years have continued this political legislative battle, with often and radical legislative changes depending on government.

  In Germany, the guild system became very nested in German society, the Hansa guilds in cities, the craft guilds in the home towns, providing social security at a time when Germany comprised over one hundred sovereignties. This explains both the lateness of any questioning of their existence, as well the attempts to create structure after Napoleon through a reinstatement of the guilds. The social security provided by the guilds was a motivation in 1830s Prussia as to implementing state social welfare and led to such a broad acceptance of state intervention that it was adopted on the national level in the 1870s to counteract the radical worker movement. The Nazi destruction of all worker rights led to strong constitutional protections of worker rights and voice in the 1950 Basic Law, which have continued in the present day German labor law model comprising works councils, employee board representation and trade unions.

  In Sweden, the historical timeline from the dismantling of the guild system to the self-regulation of the labor market by the Swedish social partners was a little over fifty years. The guilds were outlawed by 1864 and by 1906, the social partners had entered into a collective agreement that laid the foundations for the present day Swedish labor law model, characterized by strong employer and employee organizations acting as cartels, a model not too dissimilar to the former guild structures. The pragmatic approach of the social partners and the very detailed procedural structures in place with respect to negotiations and industrial actions, have resulting in very few lost work days due to strike. The current challenges facing the Swedish labour law model are those mostly coming from the outside, in the form of international and EU requirements as to individual rights, which are to be met by this very collective rights approach.

  The labor movement in the United States was faced a different set of challenges than Europe. Immigration and race very quickly became issues even for the colonialists. The journeymen structures became quickly embedded in the colonies, and by the 1833, the first trades’ union was founded. Depressions after the Civil War led to class strife, with the military often called in and the outcomes in lost lives high. American courts were active in industrial actions to a high degree, repressing union activity through injunctions. State action, discrimination, violence and corruption also significantly mark the history of the union movement, leading the American legislature to focus on issues different than its European counterparts. The duty of fair representation was judicially created as a counterpoint to racial discrimination within unions, creating a right to worker voice and accountability by unions already by the 1940s.

  Internationally, starting as ad hoc efforts by states and individuals to gain legal protections with respect to slavery, indenture and servitude, the focus of international efforts expanded to the conditions of workers more generally. These gradually evolved into strong cooperations, motivated by the devastation caused by two world wars, beginning with the League of Nations and the ILO. Labor organizations had already begun cooperations in the late nineteenth century which eventually became the international trade union confederations in existence today. Certain employee rights are now recognized as human rights on the international level by the UN and the ILO, and also on regional levels, including the EU, COE and the OAS. The rights recognized have also become more nuanced, beginning with limitations to the work day and night work protections, to now including issues of worker voice, not only rights to join unions, but also rights of consultation and negotiations.

  The themes addressed in the modern UK labour law model have deep historical roots, with the current treatment of these issues very much reflecting the modern political debates. Democracy within the trade unions, between members and their organizations, has been used politically as a tool for restricting the power of the trade unions. Despite this, a voluntary trend can be traced within the unions as to greater representation of different worker groups. The UK system has several avenues available as to employee grievances, first bringing them to the employer. Acas can provide conciliation, mediation and arbitration and trade unions legal assistance. The balance achieved in the UK labour law model, between statutory regulation and self-regulation by the social partners, resting on constitutional principles such as natural justice and access to justice, provides a unique solution to employee voice. The modern German labour law model is built on both strong social partners and strong individual employee rights particularly with respect to voice. The dual channel system with employee representation through both works councils and labor unions provides several avenues for employees to raise issues, directly to the employer with support, to the works council or to the trade union. The works councils are given enhanced statutory duties with respect to certain protected groups based on sex, age, disability and race. Two cornerstones can be seen in the procedural rules concerning labor disputes: quick and efficient solutions that are transparent and focused on the needs of the public, as well as that employees are to have access to justice to courts, with a reallocation of trial costs and fees to minimize the economic risks to employees, as well as checks that the costs and fees are not excessive. The current Swedish labor law model is very focused on the social partners and collective solutions to labor market issues. Union members have no statutory rights with respect to the unions, and no voice with respect to employers except through the unions or litigation. Elaborate procedures have been in place concerning the negotiations between the social partners, with extensive rights as to industrial action, with sympathy, secondary actions lawful. The trends with respect to the low damage awards and the relatively higher attorneys’ costs and fees create a significant deterrent for individuals to pursue employment grievances. Litigation is arguably not an affordable option for most individual plaintiffs, particularly in cases of employment grievances with respect to hirings or firings, consequently individuals who are unemployed. Although technically a one-channel system of employee representation, American federal law creates several avenues of employee voice in addition to labor organizations. Individual employees can bring claims to state and federal agencies alleging unfair labor practices or unlawful discrimination, which agencies investigate such claims. Employees can also act together concertedly outside the scope of a labor organization and still be afforded legal protection. Extensive statutory requirements exist with respect to labor organizations and procedural due process demands. The labor unions also have a duty of fair representation, entailing that they must as the exclusive representative of the employees, represent all the employees equally. This duty is regardless of an individual’s union membership status, sex, race, religion, disability or age. This emphasis on employee voice and access to justice in American law is very much a legacy of past discrimination.

  Beginning with the premise that procedural guarantees for union members with regards to labor union decisions, particularly responsiveness and the interests protected in line with Habermas’ procedural concept of democracy, create legitimacy within existing labor law structures, this work has examined the labor law models of the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden and the United States. What the history of worker collectivism reveals is that procedural due process has always been a component, but perhaps not always expressly articulated, in worker collectivism since the time of the early guilds. Solidarity, equality and mutual aid have been ever present, to various degrees and in different forms. A way forward is to consciously build on and strengthen procedural democracy for union members, through legal protections as to transparency and procedural due process for union members. Given the greater focus today on human rights in the labor law context, the mechanisms necessary to invoke these rights need to be in place to give them effect.

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• Comparative Discrimination Law: Historical and Theoretical Frameworks

  2017. Laura Carlson.

  Book

  Human history is marked by group and individual struggles for emancipation, equality and self-expression. This first volume in the Brill Research Perspectives in Comparative Discrimination Law briefly explores some of the history underlying these efforts in the field of discrimination law. A broad discussion of the historical development of issues of discrimination is first set out, looking at certain international, regional and national bases for modern discrimination legal structures. Several of the theoretical frameworks invoked in a comparative discrimination law analysis are then addressed, either as institutional frameworks or theories addressing specific protection grounds. This first volume is dedicated to setting out an introduction to the field of comparative discrimination law to give the reader a platform from which to undertake further reading and research in the compelling topic of comparative discrimination law.

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• Discrimination damages - Promoting or preventing access to justice?

  2017. Laura Carlson. Festskrift till Ann Numhauser-Henning, 129-143

  Chapter

  This chapter focuses on combating unlawful discrimination; a battle firmly entrenched in both Swedish and EU law. Hand-in-hand with eradicating unlawful discrimination are issues of access to justice, the ability of individuals to seek and obtain effective remedies for unlawful discrimination through institutions of justice. The focus of this contribution is on three vital aspects necessary for disadvantaged communities to have access to justice. The first is effective, proportional and dissuasive remedies for discrimination claims. Closely tied to this are aspects two and three, whether the Swedish justice system is financially accessible for discrimination plaintiffs and whether legal counsel is available to such plaintiffs. This contribution examines the institution of discrimination damages (diskrimineringsersättning) as newly created in the Swedish 2008 Discrimination Act, both as intended by the legislature to increase access to justice and as applied by the Labour Court (Arbetsdomstolen, ‘AD’). The intention and application of the law will be assessed against an access to justice analysis focusing on the award of damages as well as trial costs and fees, and access to legal counsel for plaintiffs.

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• Searching for Equality

  2007. Laura Carlson, Ronnie Eklund, Clare McGlynn.

  Thesis (Doc)

  Achieving economic equality between men and women is a challenge to every country. The approach taken politically and legally in Sweden is to encourage a greater economic independence of women from the family through paid work, as well encouraging men to assume a greater share of unpaid work, particularly parental leave, resulting in a lessening of the double burden of work for women. These efforts have made within the context of the parameters of the Swedish model with respect to labor, in which the preferred mechanism of resolution is agreement between the social partners and not legislation. To this end, the Swedish collective agreements have been analyzed specifically with respect to taking parental leave. The other parameters in the area of sex equality applicable to the Swedish system are those as defined by Community law, specifically the equal treatment and equal pay directives, against which the Swedish regulations as well as case law applying such are assessed.

  This work takes the Swedish approach to the problem of economic equality and compares it to the approaches as found in EU, UK and US law. In the UK, there has been a recent emphasis on a family friendly workplace, which is to be achieved at least in part through flexible working. The American approach has focused on discriminatory behavior as a societal phenomena. Comparisons to these two national systems are interesting also from an industrial relations aspect, as Sweden is the most unionized at 80 %, followed by the UK and then by the US at only 15 %.

  The findings of this thesis suggest that Sweden may need to reassess its approach to equality between the sexes, as well as issues of discrimination in general, incorporating aspects of access to justice into the legal system, as well as reassessing the role of the labor unions, and the Swedish model, with respect to such questions in general...

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