Labour law
Following the unification of the city-states in Assyria and Sumer by Sargon of Akkad into a single empire ruled from his home city circa 2334 BC, common Mesopotamian standards for length, area, volume, weight, and time used by artisan guilds in each city was promulgated by Naram-Sin of Akkad (c. 2254–2218 BC), Sargon's grandson, including for shekels.
[1] Code of Hammurabi Law 234 (c. 1755–1750 BC) stipulated a 2-shekel prevailing wage for each 60-gur (300-bushel) vessel constructed in an employment contract between a shipbuilder and a ship-owner.
[9] In September 2011, archeological investigations done at the site of the artificial harbour Portus in Rome revealed inscriptions in a shipyard constructed during the reign of Trajan (98–117) indicating the existence of a shipbuilders guild.
[11] Collegium also included fraternities of Roman priests overseeing ritual sacrifices, practicing augury, keeping scriptures, arranging festivals, and maintaining specific religious cults.
[12] Labour law arose in parallel with the Industrial Revolution as the relationship between worker and employer changed from small-scale production studios to large-scale factories.
A local inquiry presided over by Dr Thomas Percival, was instituted by the justices of the peace for Lancashire, and the resulting report recommended the limitation of children's working hours.
The Cotton Mills and Factories Act 1819 was the outcome of the efforts of the industrialist Robert Owen and prohibited child labour under nine years of age and limited the working hours to twelve.
This act was an important step forward, in that it mandated skilled inspection of workplaces and rigorous enforcement of the law by an independent governmental body.
In 1850, systematic reporting of fatal accidents was made compulsory, and basic safeguards for health, life and limb in the mines were put in place from 1855.
Algeria, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Greece, Hungary, India, Ireland, Japan, South Korea, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Paraguay, Portugal, Poland, Romania, Spain, Taiwan, the UK, the US, Vietnam, Germany (in 2015[25]) and others have laws of this kind.
However, rather than in factories and sweatshops, most child labour in the twenty-first century occurs in the informal sector, "selling on the street, at work in agriculture or hidden away in houses — far from the reach of official inspectors and from media scrutiny.
In a majority of EU member states (for example, Germany, Sweden, and France), the workforce has a right to elect directors on the board of large corporations.
In the United Kingdom, similar proposals were drawn up, and a command paper produced named the Bullock Report (Industrial Democracy) was released in 1977 by the James Callaghan Labour Party government.
The UK ultimately refused to ratify the Convention, as did many current EU members, although the Working Time Directive adopts its principles, subject to individual opt-out.
To ensure compliance, the ILO is limited to gathering evidence and reporting on member states' progress, relying on publicity to create pressure to reform.
Because the ILO's enforcement mechanisms are weak, incorporating labour standards in the World Trade Organization's (WTO) operation has been proposed.
Unlike for the ILO, contravening WTO rules as recognized by the dispute settlement procedures opens a country to retaliation through trade sanctions.
Proponents have called for a "social clause" to be inserted into the GATT agreements, for example, by amending Article XX, which provides an exception that allows imposition of sanctions for breaches of human rights.
Most people thought this meant that more favourable conditions could be given than the minimum (e.g., in Latvian law) by the host state's legislation or a collective agreement.
This decision was implicitly reversed by the European Union legislature in the Rome I Regulation, which makes clear in recital 34 that the host state may allow more favourable standards.
The Grenelle accords negotiated on May 25 and 26th in the middle of the May 1968 crisis, reduced the working week to 44 hours and created trade union sections in each enterprise.
Addressing the demands of employers asking for more flexibility in French labour laws, the CNE sparked criticism from trade unions and opponents claiming it favoured contingent work.
The Polish Labour Code provides regulations on employee benefits, annual leave, termination of the employment contract, discrimination in the workplace, disciplinary liability and many other employment-related issues.
Articles 38–39, and 41-43A, like all rights listed in Part IV of the Constitution are not enforceable by courts, rather than creating an aspirational "duty of the State to apply these principles in making laws".
[3] The original justification for leaving such principles unenforceable by the courts was that democratically accountable institutions ought to be left with discretion, given the demands they could create on the state for funding from general taxation, although such views have since become controversial.
[72] Lithuania began the work of rewriting the employment laws in 1996 and the Labour Code (Lithuanian: Darbo Kodeksas) bill was completed in 2001.
Since then there has been a significant expansion primarily due to movements for equality[84] and the legal requirements imposed by the UK's former membership of the European Union.
The National Labor Relations Act, enacted in 1935 as part of the New Deal legislation, guarantees workers the right to form unions and engage in collective bargaining.
Uziel tend to corporatist settling of labour conflicts, while Rabbi Moshe Feinstein adopts the liberal democratic collective bargaining model.
Since the 1940s the halakhic literature on labour law was enriched by books and articles that referred to growing range of questions and basically adopted the liberal democratic approach.
