While legislation protecting employees exists in most advanced countries, the notion of who actually is an employee has become unstable. Moreover, the decentralization of traditional collective bargaining is clearly under way everywhere, and the all-important balance between workers security and employers flexibility continues to change radically, either retreating toward individual statutory rights or seeking new forms of employee representation. This volume reprints sixteen reports originally submitted to the seventh Comparative Labor Law Seminar (Tokyo Seminar) sponsored by the Japan Institute for Labour Policy and Training in March 2004. Eleven expert authors describe the situation in their respective countries.