Abstract

The article investigates the complex patterns of business organizations’ impact on industrial relations by considering recent cases such as the strike of Amazon warehouse and delivery workers. It is suggested that, for the scope of industrial relations law, the concept of employer should be broadly conceived as to include those entities that direct or strongly influence substantial groups of suppliers. More precisely, a “softµ joint employer concept should be employed in order to extend the field of application of collective bargaining, unfair labour practice and strike law. The American (Pro) Right to organize act, the Spanish caselaw on the protection of the right to strike in groups of companies and supply chains and, finally, the recent EU debate about the human rights duty of care in global supply chains are considered as relevant examples of the need to go beyond the classical concept of employer in Industrial relations law