Legal Form, Employment Protection and Class Strategy in Britain and Sweden, 1963–2025

Abstract This article examines employment protection legislation in Britain from 1963 and in Sweden from its codification in the 1970s, tracing developments through 2025. It argues that dismissal law and related protections operate as legal forms through which capitalist states manage class conflict by stabilising job security for insiders while relocating insecurity to temporary, agency and other non-standard work. The article develops the concepts of juridification and legal power resources to analyse how unions use law, how enforcement forums shape access to rights and how protection is unevenly realised across the labour market. Drawing on long-term research on dismissal, redundancy and enforcement institutions, it shows how Conservative and Social Democratic governments alike have used employment protection to institutionalise class compromise and accommodate demands for flexibility. It concludes that legal reforms have delivered real protections yet contributed to dualisation, highlighting the structural limits of labour law as a strategy against precarious work.