scholarly journals Personal scope of labour legislation - (un)reliability of the criteria for qualification of subjects of labour law protection

2015 ◽  
pp. 505-519 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ljubinka Kovacevic

Establishing the personal scope of labour legislation is a delicate task, primarily because of the need to make labour law protection available to all people, who actually perform dependent work. Labour law protection is therefore traditionally limited to people working under the power of another, although, depending on the nature of their work, the degree of their subordination to the employer?s (managerial, normative and disciplinary) prerogatives may vary. This is the main reason why legal subordination was developed as a reliable criterion for the qualification of employees. However, certain legal systems have recently started defining this term based on other characteristics of subordinated work, which leads to dilution of the traditional concept of subordination. Besides, the dilution of this concept is also caused by the introduction of legal fiction regarding employee status in favour of certain categories of workers. Although these changes have been implemented in court practices of certain countries, there is no reason to conclude that the subordination concept has been diluted beyond recognition. In this regards, one should be aware of the need to protect the persons who are engaged in a disguised employment relationship, which is why the principle of primacy of fact should be applied here. On the other hand, the emergence of new forms of work significantly dulls the edge that delineates the dependent from independent work, especially if we take into account the self-employed persons whose means of subsistence come predominantly from one employer, making them economically dependent and thereby creating the need for their special protection.

2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 1101-1127
Author(s):  
Darja Senčur Peček ◽  
Sandra Laleta ◽  
Karla Kotulovski

This article analyses the contractual relationships concerning temporary agency work: specificities of the employment contract between the agency (as an employer) and worker; contractual relationship between agency and the user undertaking and the factual relationship between the user and agency workers. Concerning the employment relationship between the agency and worker, the analysis focuses on the fact that only legal subject that fulfils specific conditions can operate as an agency; further, on the duration of the employment relationship, the workplace, rights and the termination of the employment relationship. Despite the fact that the agency and the user conclude the commercial contract, those contractual parties are limited by the labour law rules that are the object of the analysis in this article. Thirdly, the article deals with the relationship between the agency worker and user, that is not formalized by the conclusion of the contract, but regulated by the labour legislation, that prescribes the workers’ rights and its impact on the user’s stable workers’ rights. The authors analyse the mentioned contractual relationships as regulated in Croatian and Slovenian labour law, as well as by EU law, giving the examples of good practice used in some European countries.


2021 ◽  
pp. 002218562110039
Author(s):  
Eugene Schofield-Georgeson

Over the past two decades, industrial relations scholarship has observed a trend towards an increasingly punitive industrial environment along with the ‘re-regulation’ of labour law. Absent from much of this literature, however, has been an empirical and historical measurement or comparison of the scale and quality of this systemic change. By surveying coercive and penal federal industrial legislation over the period 1901–2020, this study shows empirically that over the last 40 years, there has been a steep increase in the amount of coercive federal labour legislation in Australia. It further measures and compares the volume of coercive labour legislation enacted specifically against ‘labour’ and ‘capital’ or both throughout the same period (1901–2020). Analysis reveals a correlation between a high volume of coercive labour legislation with low levels of trade union power and organisation. Argued here is that coercive labour legislation has been crucial to transitioning from a liberal conciliation and arbitration model of Australian industrial relations towards a neoliberal framework of employment legislation. In the former, regulation was more collective, informal and egalitarian (embodied by the sociological concept of ‘associative democracy’). Under a neoliberal framework, regulation is now more individualised, technical, punitive and rarely enforced, resulting in less equal material outcomes.


2021 ◽  
Vol specjalny II (XXI) ◽  
pp. 377-386
Author(s):  
Tomasz Duraj

The subject of the foregoing study is an analysis of the specific rules for the remuneration of members of a worker cooperative who, by contributing to the organisation, participate in the economic risks associated with its operation. Each member of a worker cooperative is guaranteed the right to participate in the profit (balance surplus) of the cooperative, but at the same time participates in covering its losses up to the amount of the declared contribution. This special status of members of a worker cooperative, together with the obligation to work for that organisation on the basis of an employment relationship, has an impact on the remuneration of that category of workers. This can be seen in the structure of their remuneration, which consists of the current salary and the share of the balance surplus to be distributed among the members in accordance with the rules laid down in the statutes. Moreover, the current salary of a member of a worker cooperative and his share of the balance surplus are under protection provided by labour law for the remuneration of the employees.


Obiter ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fiona Leppan ◽  
Avinash Govindjee ◽  
Ben Cripps

While good-faith bargaining is recognized in many overseas jurisdictions and by the International Labour Organisation, such a duty has not been incorporated in South African labour legislation. Given the many recent examples of labour unrest in South Africa, it is time to consider whether there should be a duty to bargain in good faith when taking part in collective bargaining. Recognizing such a duty would arguably benefit both employers and employees and South Africa as a whole.


2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-50
Author(s):  
Nikita L. Lyutov

The Subject of the Study. The article deals with an issue of impact of atypical employment on the socioeconomic development on micro- and macro levels. The Purpose of the Study is to discover the links between the introduction of atypical forms of employment and socioeconomic development. The Main Theoretical and Empirical Aspects of Study: as the implementation of various forms of atypical employment is one of the aspects of flexibility in employment relations’ regulation, the author starts with a general analysis of impact of general flexibility of employment on the economy. This section of the article contains the conclusion that a thesis about positive effect of labour law flexibility on the economic effectiveness remains unproven; – the second part of the article contains an analysis of the relations between the specific forms of atypical employment and the state of economy. The conclusion has been made that ill-considered implementation of such forms into the labour legislation leads to such negative consequences to the economy as the labour market segmentation and volatility, rising incomes gap and lowering the purchasing power. – the thesis is made that Russian labour legislation modification in the field of atypical employment development is only acceptable with a view to make the already existing atypical employment come out of informal sector, and in a way that takes into account the interests of both parties of the employment relationship.


Pro Memorie ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-179
Author(s):  
Jasper Van de Woestijne

Abstract In Belgium, the administration of justice with regard to labour law is in the hands of specialised courts, staffed by a combination of professional and lay judges. This has historical roots. An important step in the evolution of these courts is the establishment of the ‘werkrechtersraden van beroep’ (‘conseils de prud’hommes d’appel’). From their creation in 1913 until their reform in 1967, these councils were the highest authority in Belgium to settle disputes on the work floor and consequently the highest interpreter of labour legislation. The institution constantly balanced on the remarkable interface between law and labour. In this contribution, a fact check is carried out to see how this balance worked in practice. An exceptional episode are the periods in which this system was placed under tension. Therefore, this contribution pays special attention to the case law pronounced by the werkrechtersraad van beroep of Ghent in the crisis-ridden period 1935-1950.


2021 ◽  
Vol specjalny (XXI) ◽  
pp. 83-91
Author(s):  
Łukasz Pisarczyk

The article discusses the employer’s risk as a principle of labour law. The idea of employer’s risk is that the employer bears the consequences of obstacles in the performance of the employment relationship that it has not caused. The author distinguishes the obstacles: not related (the employer’s risk in a strict sense) and related to the employee (personal risk). As a rule, the employer bears the risk of circumstances not related to the employee. The nature as well as the application scope of regulations allow to formulate a normative principle of the labour law. At the same time the employer bears the risk of the obstacles related to the employee only in cases specified in the labour law, both: statutory standards as well as autonomous provisions. As a result, the personal risk of the employer cannot be considered to be a normative principle of the labour law.


Author(s):  
John Gardner

This chapter explores the idea that labour law rests on ‘a contractual foundation’, and the idea that work relations today are ever more ‘contractualised’. Section 1 lays out some essentials of British labour law and its connections with the common law of contract. Section 2 explains what contractualisation is, not yet focusing attention on the specific context of labour law. The main claims are that contract is not a specifically legal device, and that contractualisation is therefore not a specifically legal process, even when the law is complicit in it. Section 3 shifts attention to the world of work, especially the employment relationship. Here the main ideas are that the employment relationship is not (apart from the law) a contractual relationship, and that all the norms of the employment relationship cannot therefore be captured adequately in a contract, legally binding or otherwise. Section 4 illustrates the latter point by focusing on the rationale and the limits of the employer’s authority over the employee. A contractual rationale yields the wrong limits. It gives its blessing to authoritarian work regimes and lends credence to the miserable view that work is there to pay for the life of the worker without forming part of that life. Throughout the chapter there are intimations of the conclusion drawn in section 5: that contractualisation, in the labour market at least, is a process that lovers of freedom, as well as lovers of self-realisation, should resist—or rather, should have resisted while they still had the chance.


2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 288-310
Author(s):  
Natalie Sedacca

Domestic workers are mainly women, are disproportionately from ethnic minorities and/or international migrants, and are vulnerable to mistreatment, often receiving inadequate protection from labour legislation. This article addresses ways in which the conditions faced by migrant domestic workers can prevent their enjoyment of the right to private and family life. It argues that the focus on this right is illuminating as it allows for the incorporation of issues that are not usually within the remit of labour law into the discussion of working rights, such as access to family reunification, as well as providing for a different perspective on the question of limits on working time – a core labour right that is often denied to domestic workers. These issues are analysed by addressing a case study each from Latin America and Europe, namely Chile and the UK. The article considers impediments to realising the right to private and family life stemming both from the literal border – the operation of immigration controls and visa conditions – and from the figurative border which exists between domestic work and other types of work, reflected in the conflation of domestic workers with family members and stemming from the public/private sphere divide.


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