Comparativism is no longer a purely academic exercise buthas increasingly become an urgent necessity for industrialrelations and legal practitioners, due to the growth ofmultinational enterprises and the impact of internationaland regional organizations aspiring to harmonize rules. Thegrowing need for comprehensive, up-to-date, and readilyavailable information on labour law and industrial relations indifferent countries led to the publication of the InternationalEncyclopaedia for Labour Law and Industrial Relations, inwhich almost 100 international and national monographs havethus far been published. This book, Comparative Labour Lawand Industrial Relations in Industrialized Market Economies, goes further than the Encyclopaedia inasmuch as most ofthe chapters provide comparative and integrated thematictreatment. The aim is to describe the salient characteristicsand trends in labour law and industrial relations in thecontemporary world.