"Why do we think about some practices as work, and not others? Why do we classify certain capacities as economically valuable skills, and others as innate characteristics? What, moreover, is the role of law in shaping our answers to these questions?" These are just some of the queries explored by Zoe Adams's analysis of the legal construction, and regulation, of work. Spanning from the 14th century to the present day, The Legal Concept of Work explores how the role of law and legal concepts comes to consider some forms of human labour as work, and some forms of human labour as non-work. It examines why perceptions of these activities can change over time, and how legal constitution impacts the way in which work comes to be regulated, organised, and valued. As part of the analysis, the book presents a series of case studies, ranging from the publishing industry, academia, medicine, and retail, with a view of illustrating some of the regulatory challenges different types of work face, in the context of capitalism.
Fifty years on from its original publication, HLA Hart's The Concept of Law is widely recognized as the most important work of legal philosophy published in the twentieth century, and remains the starting point for most students coming to the subject for the first time. In this third edition, Leslie Green provides a new introduction that sets the book in the context of subsequent developments in social and political philosophy, clarifying misunderstandings of Hart's project and highlighting central tensions and problems in the work.
McCann explains how wage discrimination battles have raised public legal consciousness and helped reform activists mobilize working women in the pay equity movement over the past two decades. Rights at Work explores the political strategies in more than a dozen pay equity struggles since the late 1970s, including battles of state employees in Washington and Connecticut, as well as city employees in San Jose and Los Angeles. Relying on interviews with over 140 union and feminist activists, McCann shows that, even when the courts failed to correct wage discrimination, litigation and other forms of legal advocacy provided reformers with the legal discourse--the understanding of legal rights and their constraints--for defining and advancing their cause.
Deference is central to almost everything that happens in law but has not been the subject of systematic study, perhaps because it shows up in so many different forms and places. This book aims to provide a definition and vocabulary for the study of deference that anyone, from any perspective, can use.
Collective Bargaining for Self-Employed Workers in Europe Approaches to Reconcile Competition Law and Labour Rights Founding Editor: Roger Blanpain General Editor: Frank Hendrickx Edited by Bernd Waas & Christina Hießl The increase in the number of self-employed workers, partially in response to the advent of the platform economy, has raised the spectre of horizontal price-fixing by self-employed members of a profession. This perception, however, is at odds with international labour standards, under which self-employed persons should also be able to conclude collective agreements to some extent. It is now commonplace for companies to offer various forms of non-standard employment that shift risk from the labour engager to the labour provider – which may increase the likelihood of those workers to fall outside the legal concept of ‘employee’ and because of that affects their legal protection. Legal practitioners may then face a dilemma: what may be required under labour law may be prohibited under antitrust law. In the first comprehensive analysis of these intensely debated issues, the authors argue that there is an urgent need to address the current legal puzzle, including through regulatory measures. This must include, in particular, the existing regulation at the level of the European Union (EU), which dominates competition law in the Member States. The book combines an analysis of the supranational framework by experts in labour law as well as competition law with in-depth country reports from Member States of the EU in which regulations and/or practices of collective bargaining for the self-employed exist. Among the many issues discussed in this book are the following: collective bargaining and international labour rights; self-employed individuals and the concept of undertaking in EU competition law; the concept of ‘social dumping’; the importance of the case law of the European Court of Justice; the concept of ‘vulnerability’; competition authorities’ enforcement strategies and priorities; the concept of ‘false self-employed’; and the possible introduction of exemptions, presumptions, safe harbours, or smart regulation solutions in competition law. The book gives an insight into the legal situation in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden. These reports discuss the current practice of collective bargaining and how the current law is reflected in the academic discourse on the right of self-employed people to bargain collectively. This important book, in its presentation of legally sound and effective ways to shape the application of the right to bargain collectively that are attuned to the business and technological realities of the twenty-first century, promotes an understanding of the consequences for current law and practice and offers a basis for a discussion of regulatory measures addressing existing challenges. Practitioners of labour law and competition law, national competition authorities, and other interested parties will benefit from the detailed analysis and extensive findings.
The concept of the employer has been surprisingly ignored in employment and corporate law, leaving protective norms unable to grapple with modern work arrangements. This book scrutinises the received concept of a unitary employer providing a functional reconceptualization as a framework for future arguments and coherent judicial decision-making.
This book argues that overcoming people's inability to recognize their own wrongdoing is the most important but regrettably neglected area of the behavioral approach to law.
The economic right of a copyright holder to communicate to the public has become an increasingly important and complex issue in recent years, this is partially due to changes in the way that content is accessed and consumed online. This innovative book analyses the right of communication to the public, taking account of what legal standing an autonomous legal concept can hold, and how this is impacted by wider harmonisation efforts at an EU level.
