Showing papers on "Labour law published in 1995"

Industrial relations : theory and practice in Britain

Abstract: Preface. 1. The Employment Relationship and the Field of Industrial Relations: Paul Edwards. 2. The Historical Evolution of British Industrial Relations: Richard Hyman. 3. The Labour Market: History, Structure and Prospects: Peter Nolan and Gary Slater. 4. Foreign Multinationals and Industrial Relations Innovation in Britain: Anthony Ferner. 5. The State: Economic Management and Incomes Policy: Colin Crouch. 6. Labour Law and Industrial Relations: a New Settlement? Linda Dickens and Mark Hall. 7. Management: Systems, Structures and Strategy: Keith Sisson and Paul Marginson. 8. The Management of Pay as the Influence of Collective Bargaining Diminishes: William Brown, Paul Marginson and Janet Walsh. 9. Trade Union Organization: Jeremy Waddington. 10. Employee Representation: Shop Stewards and the New Legal Framework: Michael Terry. 11. Industrial Relations in the Public Sector: Stephen Bach and David Winchester. 12. Individualism and Collectivism in Industrial Relations: Ian Kessler and John Purcell. 13. New Forms of Work Organization: Still Limited, Still Controlled, but Still Welcome? John F. Geary. 14. Managing Without Unions: the Sources and Limitations of Individualism: Trevor Colling. 15. Training: Ewart Keep and Helen Rainbird. 16. The Industrial Relations of a Diverse Workforce: Sonia Liff. 17. Low Pay and the National Minimum Wage: Jill Rubery and Paul Edwards. 18. Employment Relations in Small Firms: Richard Scase. 19. Industrial Relations, Human Resource Management and Performance: Peter Nolan and Kathy O'Donnell. Index.

Restoring the promise of American labor law

Abstract: The product of an October 1993 conference on labor law reform jointly sponsored by the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell U. and the Department of Economic Research at the AFL-CIO, this volume both argues the need for fundamental reform of the legal and institutional underpinnings o

A Strategy for Labor

Abstract: Labor's decline is advanced, disastrous for democracy, and unlikely to be relieved by labor law reform at the national level. Unions need a strategy for revival that does not premise such relief, and that takes account of the deeper changes in social and economic organization that have undermined their strength. Such a strategy is available, but it requires a sharp break with the uncoordinated, firm-centered, and politically non-independent “service model” unionism, exclusively preoccupied with units where majority status has been achieved, still generally practiced today.

EC Employment Law

Abstract: Community legal system and remedies European Community law and the development of a social policy free movement of persons equality law health and safety working conditions and other individual labour law measures employment rights on the restructuring of enetrprises collective labour law.

Working Groups or Wage Labour? Cash‐crops, Reciprocity and Money among the Maka of Southeastern Cameroon

Abstract: The spread of cocoa cultivation among the Maka in the 1950s created new labour demands. These were not met by wage labour, as in most cocoa producing areas, but rather by a novel system of working groups. Specific economic factors can help to explain why wage labour did not develop within the villages, but it is also clear that the preference of the Maka for more cooperative labour arrangements was related to broader socio-cultural characteristics of this society—notably the somewhat paradoxical tension between strong levelling mechanisms and an equally strong emphasis on personal ambition. The new working groups were based on reciprocal exchange of labour, but money came to play an increasing role in their functioning. They allowed for a certain degree of commodification of labour to the advantage of richer farmers, but ultimately they restricted the rise of more structural inequalities. The recent crisis in cash-cropping makes it clear that a system of working groups can offer farmers more flexibility than wage labour in the face of the vagaries of world-market prices.

Trade and Labour Standards: A Review of the Issues

Abstract: Excerpt] This is a paper by a labour economist for trade specialists. It is written at a time of hope tempered by fear. On the trade side, the hope is that the new World Trade Organisation will stimulate a better trading environment for all countries. On the labour side, the hope is that labour standards can continually be improved for most if not all of the world's working people. But there are also fears. One fear is that these goals may be difficult to achieve simultaneously. Another is that they may be undone by various pressures, including issues left unresolved in the Uruguay Round of the GATT. Trade and labour market policies are continuously being discussed and reformulated. Strangely enough, much of this debate takes place in the absence of clearly-articulated goals. The reasons, it would seem, are twofold. On the one hand, for some analysts, the goals (e.g. freer trade, workers' rights) are held to be self-evident. On the other hand, the goals are themselves sometimes hard to pinpoint. When does "free trade" give way to "fair trade"? When does the pursuit of one labour standard (e.g. free collective bargaining) take precedence over another (e.g. full employment)?

Lawyers against Labor: From Individual Rights to Corporate Liberalism

Abstract: A major revision of the history of labor law in the United States in the early twentieth century, "Lawyers against Labor" goes beyond legal issues to consider cultural, political, and industrial history as well In the first full treatment of the turn-of-the-century American Anti-Boycott Association(AABA), Daniel Ernst ably leads the reader through a compelling story of business and politics The AABA was an organization of small- to medium-sized employers whose staff litigated and lobbied against organized labor Ernst captures in depth the characters involved, bringing them to life with a writer's eye and a touch of wit As he examines the AABA at work to combat trade unions through the courts, he introduces its most notable leaders, Daniel Davenport and Walter Gordon Merritt - who personified the opposing points of view - and shows how pluralism had won itself a place in the legal, academic, political, corporate, and even trade-union worlds long before the New Deal

The Future of Labour Law

Abstract: Have we reached the 'end' of labour law? The disbandment of the Department of Employment in July 1995' and the announcement by the last Secretary of State for Employment that the 'step by step' reform of labour law which began in 1980 has been completed, will be seen by some in this way, just as Fukuyama proclaims the 'end of history'. In this vision, the framework of decollectivized, deregulated, and deinstitutionalized neo-liberal labour law is here to stay because it matches the basic needs of a globalized capitalist market economy and of liberal democracy. Yet at the very moment of its apparent triumph, individualized market labour law faces political, industrial and judicial challenges. The leader of new Labour assured the TGWU Conference in July 1995 that a Labour government would make a number of important changes in labour legislation, including new rights of trade union representation, restoration of trade union rights at GCHQ, giving part-time workers the same rights as full-timers, and 'signing the EC Social Chapter': The TUC has launched a campaign for 'a new legal framework which combines the best traditions of British collective bargaining with new rights under European law'. The European Court of Justice's ruling has forced the Government to bring forward legislation to provide for the designation of workers' representatives for the purposes of consultation under the directives on collective redundancies and transfers of undertakings. The Government has also had to amend thresholds in UK legislation which the House of Lords found to be

Labour law and industrial relations in Germany

Abstract: Labour Law and Industrial Relations in Germany gives the reader a broad understanding of German labour law covering all importantaspects. The book deals with the sources of labour law, individual employment relationships, collective bargaining, remuneration, working conditions, and dispute settlement.It provides advocates, administrators, management, and especially students, with an overview of all aspects of German labour law, and, to some extent, of its social, economic, and political context. The fourth edition is a revised version and all the latest developments are covered.

Labour legislation and public policy : a contemporary history

Abstract: Collective laissez-faire full employment and the postwar consensus 1945-1951 the easy decade 1951-1961 modernization and experiments with planning 1961-1969 industrial justice and the individual worker 1968-1974 the end of agreement - collective labour law 1964-1970 the failed revolution - collective labour law 1970-1974 the social contract 1974-1979 reducing the power of trade unions 1979-1990 restructuring the labour economy 1979-1990 conclusion - a post-war perspective.

Constructing the post‐fordist state? The politics of labour market flexibility in Spain

Abstract: This article addresses several issues surrounding the politics of flexibility in Spain. First, it argues that the strategic role of trade unions develop and condition public policies on labour market reform by couching their strategies in terms of the post‐war labour market strategies and structures of the state, especially as governments attempt to move away from established forms of fordist regulation. Hence, second, a broader political and historical perspective is required that understands the complex political dynamics of state‐labour relationships and their structuring over time. The state's role and its labour market presence becomes itself the object of distinct political interventions and calculations by unions, governments and employers. Any discussion of a ‘post‐fordist’ state, determined to increase the flexibility of the labour market, must look at the complex and difficult ‘transitional’ process.

Labour law and freedom : further essays in labour law

Abstract: Today, Britain has fewer legal guarantees for workers and trade unions than most other European countries. This situation arises partly from a longstanding laissez faire attitude towards labour law on both sides of British industry. It is not simply the result of recent legislative changes. This book is an examination of the legal conditions of the international/European framework within which they necessarily function. Lord Wedderburn formulates an agenda for legislative priorities to meet the next century, and argues for new ways of understanding labour law in the technological age. Lord Wedderburn is the author of "The Worker and the Law".

Protection of labour rights in the age of democratization and economic restructuring in southern africa

Abstract: The contours of human rights, especially labour rights, have undergone significant shifts in the recent past in Southern Africa. Labour law regimes have been overhauled, resulting in large-scale changes, liberalization of controls over trade unions, loosening of strictures relating to the right to strike, freeing collective bargaining from excessive governmental interference and the extension of protective legislation to previously excluded workers. These developments have been a function of dramatic changes throughout die region. The transition in Soudiern Africa has encompassed die political, economic and legal fabrics of most countries. It has been under way since die late 1980s and is being extended daily. In die constitutional zone, diere is a discernible trend towards the constdtutionalization of social rights, thus settling the debate regarding positive and negative rights in favour of the interdependence, indivisibility and interconnectedness of human rights. The transformation in Soudiern Africa is emblematic of three critical developments: democratization, economic liberalization and paradigmatic transitions in law.

Industrial disputes and the law in Spain

Abstract: Strike activity in Spain is unusually high compared to most other developed countries and, moreover, it has remained at a high level for the last decade, whilst strike rates have been falling in most other countries. One possible explanation for this poor strikes record is Spanish labour law with respect to industrial disputes which may be too permissive, or have remained permissive whilst other countries have tightened their legislative frameworks. By investigating the comparative strike record and comparative strike law across Europe, it is clear that neither of the above scenarios holds true. Spanish law is neither particularly permissive, nor has it become more permissive relative to other countries which suggests that, given some caveats, Spanish strikes law cannot be held responsible for the poor strike record. Some tentative assessment of other possible explanations is made using industry data on strikes, collective bargaining coverage and levels, union representation and the proportion of fixed-term contract workers. Taken together these results are indicative of a role for non--legal industrial or labour market institutions in explaining strikes. There is clearly, though, a crying need for more micro industrial relations data sets to properly test the influence of both exogenous and endogenous factors in explaining strikes.

The Employment Contract in Transforming Labour Relations

Abstract: 1. The role of the contract of employment in transforming labour relations, introduction L. Betten. 2. The role of the contract of employment in modern labour law M. Freedland. 3. The future of the individual employment contract in Germany M. Weiss. 4. Painful rebirth from ashes: the future of the individual employment contract in Italy M. Biagi. 5. Past, present and future role of the employment contract in labour relations in Sweden R. Fahlbeck. 6. The role of the employment contract in Japan R. Yamakawa. 7. The contract of employment in Australian labour law B. Creighton, R. Mitchell. 8. Regulation of the individual employment contract in the United States M.W. Finkin.

A Famous Victory: Collective Bargaining Protections and the Statutory Aging Process

Abstract: When it enacted the National Labor Relations Act in 1935, Congress gave statutory recognition to collectively bargained terms and conditions of employment. In recent decades, the number of cases in which the Supreme Court has interpreted the NLRA has declined, leaving the Act's interpretation and enforcement primarily to the National Labor Relations Board and the federal courts of appeals. In this Article, Professor Brudney presents the results of his study of 1,224 NLRB adjudications and their fate upon federal court review, from 1986 to 1993. Professor Brudney analyzes the reversal and affirmance data, and identifies areas of general Board-court agreement and disagreement regarding how the Act should be construed. In particular, Professor Brudney identifies a cluster of NLRA issues involving the survival of the collective bargaining relationship, over which the Board and courts markedly split. A closer look at recent cases presenting these issues, Professor Brudney argues, reveals recurrent Board-court tensions over the relative importance of stable collective bargaining relationships versus individual employee free choice Professor Brudney contends that by preferring employee free choice to bargaining stability, courts are reflecting the emphasis on individual rights and freedom that pervades contemporary employment law, as well as contemporary law and society in general. He further argues that the federal courts' apparent effort to "update" the sixty-year-old Act to conform to the larger legal landscape is misguided and may bring considerable costs.

The Collective Labour Law of the European Union

Abstract: The collective labour law of the European Union is embedded in a variety of legal measures incorporating principles of collective labour law reflecting national experience. The dynamic of its development has been the spill‐over effect of these principles, through their translation into the status of EU law, and their development by decisions of the European Court of Justice. The article outlines a framework of principles which, it is argued, are currently embodied in the collective labour law of the EU. They include collectively bargained labour standards, workers' collective representation, workers' participation, and protection of strikers against dismissal. In addition, there is a parallel principle of collective solidarity emerging in the social security law of the EU. The principle of collective negotiation of labour law introduced by the Protocol and Agreement on Social Policy may be seen as the founding constitutional basis for the collective labour law of the European Union.

Employment protection legislation and labour market outcomes in Spain

Abstract: Spanish experience of labour market deregulation since the early 1980s, particularly in the form of reform of fixed-term contract legislation, illustrates the potential pitfalls of such policies. The changing nature of employment protection legislation in Spain is outlined in this paper along with theory and international evidence of the impact of such legislation on labour market outcomes to set the context. Evidence from the 1980s and 1990s suggests that the new permissive policy on fixed-term contracts has if anything exacerbated the segmented labour market via lower wage responsiveness to unemployment, greater precariousness of employment for a third of employees and, recently, the highest level of unemployment ever recorded. However, these problems are almost certainly not the fault of the reforms. Rather it is other aspects of the Spanish labour market and industrial relations system which have contributed to the apparent "failure of deregulation" to improve performance. The combination of a worker representation system, which encourages insiderism, and the labour ordinances, which hinder internal flexibility, has stymied the reforms of employment protection. These two features will need to be altered if the less stringent employment protection is to have its desired effect.

From Split Labour Market Strategy to Political Co-optation: The Palestine Labour League

Abstract: Jewish immigration, aimed at creating a Jewish settlement in Palestine, and eventually a Jewish National Home (JNH) began in the latter part of the nineteenth century and expanded rapidly after the establishment of the British mandate, in the aftermath of the First World War. Jewish immigrants, in search of employment, confronted Arab labour in similar search. While Jewish labour was in need of work, being immigrants with no other means of making a living, Arab labour was in similar need due to the inability to sustain itself adequately in the rural sector of Palestine with its deteriorating state of agriculture. The availability of these two groups of workers, with their very different history and differential ability to secure the value of their labour in the market, created a complex split labour market in Palestine. Jewish immigrant labour, who had had previous experience in wage labour and in labour organization, and who was able to elicit the cooperation of other sectors of the Jewish settlers' community, was able to obtain a higher value for its labour and yet, was at the same time, under threat of displacement by much cheaper Arab labour. As a result, consolidating its organization to maintain its relative advantage, Jewish labour aimed at acquiring the monopoly over labour in the sector of the market owned by Jews. This policy was known as the 'Hebrew Labour' policy and became one of the central organizational themes and rallying cries of the Jewish settlers' community in general and of Jewish labour in particular. The propagation of 'Hebrew labour' has until recently been taken for granted by the historiographers of the period. This is primarily the case for those writing from a Zionist perspective, who tended to contain themselves within the boundaries of the Jewish settlement - the Yishuv. The notion of the boundaries of the Jewish settlement is in itself highly problematic as discussed by Kimmerling' and Horowitz.2 To the extent that explanations were offered for the demand for 'Hebrew labour', they were primarily ideological ones - the commitment of Jewish pioneers to physical labour as an integral part of the goal of national redemption. Recently students of the formation of Israeli nation and society have

The Impact of NAFTA on Labor Arbitration in Mexico

Abstract: On October 13, 1994, the United States National Administrative Office (NAO) issued its response to the first complaints filed under the labor side agreement to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).(1) THE ruling engendered immediate criticism from union and business leaders alike. The unions charged that the hearings were "pro forma political handwashing."(2) The International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the United Electrical Workers filed complaints alleging that the Mexican subsidiaries of Honeywell, Inc. and General Electric Co. fired workers for attempting to organize unions.(3) Because most of the workers named in the complaint accepted severance pay instead of asking the Mexican conciliation and arbitration boards to determine whether the dismissals were justified, the NAO held that it could not find that Mexico failed to enforce its domestic labor laws.(4) Therefore, the NAO did not recommend that the complaints be forwarded for ministerial review under NAFTA.(5) In response to criticisms of the ruling, NAO Secretary Irasema Garza argued that the hearings had indeed been productive.(6) A look at what the hearings did and did not accomplish provides insight into the effectiveness of enforcement mechanisms under the NAFTA side accord and the ability of these mechanisms to positively affect the process of labor arbitration in Mexico. I. INTRODUCTION Although NAFTA was not originally intended to specifically address labor issues, labor became a highly controversial clement of the agreement. In response to the concerns of U.S. legislators and labor leaders that NAFTA would lead to the loss of U.S. jobs and diminished workplace standards,(7) the Clinton administration negotiated a parallel agreement designed to enforce labor rights and standards. The side agreement establishes a trinational Commission for Labor Cooperation that is designed to promote mutual cooperation in areas such as occupational health and safety, protection of children and migrant workers, general working conditions, and resolution of labor conflicts.(8) The agreement further requires that all parties enforce their own labor laws, particularly those laws dealing with occupational safety and health, child labor, or minimum wage technical labor standards.(9) Any party who believes another party has persistently failed to enforce such laws may file a formal complaint, which could lead to arbitration and ultimately the imposition of fines on the offending party.(10) Even with the side agreement, however, U.S. labor movements continued to oppose NAFTA. For example, Teamsters President Ron Carey called the accord a "political smokescreen" and warned that it did not contain the needed safeguards to prevent NAFTA from becoming "an agreement to expand exploitation in Mexico and job loss in the U.S. and Canada."(11) Despite the great amount of debate over NAFTA's probable impact on U.S. and Mexican labor, and despite the specific provision in the side agreement for the use of arbitral procedures in resolution of labor disputes stemming from NAFTA, critics have given little attention to the effect NAFTA is likely to have on the Mexican system of labor arbitration. This Note explores the competing pressures created by NAFTA on the Mexican system of labor arbitration and assesses the likelihood that NAFTA will result in the export of U.S. arbitration procedures to Mexico. Part II of the Note describes the current system of labor arbitration in Mexico, outlining the substantive and procedural laws affecting arbitration of labor disputes and briefly tracing its history in Mexican law. In order to highlight possible strengths and weaknesses of the Mexican arbitration system, Part III discusses some comparative differences between the system of labor arbitration in Mexico and the U.S. system. Part TV explores NAFTA's provision of dispute resolution and arbitration procedures. Finally, Part V assesses the impact NAFTA is likely to have on current arbitration procedures and substantive labor law in Mexico and draws some conclusions about the future of labor arbitration in Mexico. …

Work and Health: An introduction to occupational health care

Abstract: The effects of work on health, Ann Foster the effects of health on work, Cynthia Atwell work and change in industrial society - a sociological perspective, Andrew Cameron the quality of working life - occupational stress, job satisfaction and well-being at work, Peter Spurgeon and Fred Barwell health promotion in the workplace, Jane Molloy employment law, Michael Whincup.