Historical Development of Labor Law and Social Doctrines

Posted on Dec 9, 2024 in Philosophy and ethics

History of Labor Law

Authors who have dedicated themselves to the study of labor law have generally distinguished four historical periods in shaping the relationship between employer and employee: free primitive work, slavery, the system of corporations, and free labor in capitalist systems.

Initially, the livelihood of primitive people was provided by the seizure of natural fruits without cultivation or processing. Therefore, work was basically the execution of hunting and fishing tasks. With some exceptions, these were types of free and independent work, essentially aimed at satisfying family or tribal needs.

With the transition to a sedentary lifestyle, among other relevant factors, a historical period began where war between groups settled in different territories became common practice. The purpose of war was essentially the same as it is now, but with less sophistication: to secure appropriate land and resources from outsiders.

By appropriating land, sedentary peoples who were victorious earned the right to take all the material properties of the vanquished. They were also able to appropriate people, turning them into slaves. This not only had economic value but also corresponded to a cultural logic that took centuries to disappear: the idea of labor as a degrading activity for the free man, who should instead devote himself to science, art, and war. Thus, the work of these cities was developed by slaves.

As slavery in antiquity diminished, it was slowly replaced in the Middle Ages by a labor system known as the Corporation.

In economic terms, corporations or associations formed a kind of business that, through a series of royal or municipal privileges, had secured a certain type of production that had a single (monopoly) market. Thus, corporations never lacked work.

The structure of corporations may be charted as follows:

(…) had an essentially Christian and religious base. Workers gathered around a saint (which related to Don, and Don St. Paul, Don San Marcos, etc.) They chose as its patron, whose feast day is celebrated as association. The work was performed in familiar form, led by the teacher who served as head of this group of workers. There were three degrees or steps in this organization: apprentices, who were the ones that were started at this job, the comrades, who were the workers who actually executed the work, and teachers, who ran it. Once you learn the trade, the apprentice rose to the rank of partner, and describing a work executed as a teacher, could become more of a teacher, always demonstrating special skills for the job and conditions of morality outstanding (…).

The French Revolution put an end to corporations, repealing (by the Chapelli Law in 1791) all the privileges and monopolies enjoyed by the guilds. At its birth, together with the liberal economic school (the base of the capitalist system), the French Revolution gave birth to work as an employment relationship between employer and worker.

Indeed, Professor Gustavo Lagos summarizes the core features of capitalist industrialism as follows:

(…) a) separation between capital and labor and capitalist concentration, b) agglomeration of workers in cities and industrial centers c) overproduction and crises; d) birth labor law; e) organization of strikes, f) state intervention in labor and social welfare (…).

So when we talk about work in the sense that we know it today, we must make immediate reference to the capitalist system and its legal regulation driven from the French Revolution.

Doctrines on Social Issues

The social issue can be conceptualized in two ways. Strictly speaking, it corresponds to a historical period (roughly from the early twentieth century until 1932 in Chile) that produced a number of serious social and economic conflicts, caused by physical and ideological disputes between employers and workers.

In broad terms, however, historians speak of the social question to refer to all labor disputes that have a global impact, causing social and economic consequences of magnitude, regardless of the country concerned or the time. For example, some authors argue that, given the current discussion of labor flexibility in the European community, we could be living in a context that could be termed a new social issue.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, the truth is that the authors agree that the social question is the scenario that led to the creation, worldwide, of the labor movement and the consequent intervention of the State in socio-laboral matters. Now, other than social doctrines have sought to explain and settle disputes between employers and workers (or the solution of social problems).

For purposes of this paper, we will analyze the following doctrines and other modern trends:

Liberal Doctrine

Basically, this doctrine states that the State must not deal with the social question, nor should it intervene in conflicts between workers and employers or the quality of life of the population.

Indeed, the liberal doctrine states that the regulation of work (an activity to be seen as strictly private) occurs automatically through market economic activity (i.e., the confluence of supply and demand). If the state were to intervene in work (for example, setting minimum wage laws), it would negatively impact the market, affecting, in the long run, the same population it seeks to protect.

Moreover, in attempting to intervene in social questions, the State would violate basic constitutional guarantees, such as private property and freedom of contract.

Marxist Doctrine

The heart of the social matter, according to Marxist theory, would be found in the so-called theory of value or surplus value, developed by Marx in his studies of Capital. According to this theory, value (i.e., producing goods) is only found in work. Only work has the merit of generating profits, according to Marxists.

So when the boss (owner of capital) obtains utility, it is given by the appropriation (by force) of part of the worker’s labor, not remunerating that part. Thus, the ownership of capital allows the employer to provide the means of production to be worked by those who do not own them (the worker), not delivering, consequently, all the utility but only a portion (which will be the pay).

The difference between the value produced and the utility paid to the worker (in other words, the result of the subtraction between the total value of the product and the salary of the employee) is what creates the surplus value or capital gains. Then, Marx argues that the surplus labor that is not covered by compensation manifests as useful to the employer, keeping him with the capital gain and not the worker with the fruits of their labor.

The justification that the employer, by investing in the production process, generates higher profits than the sum of the employment of its workers, being correct, therefore, that the first obtains useful and remunerates the second with only part of it, does not have, for Marx, ethical livelihood. No utility would then be legitimate but a form of financial abuse for being a capitalist in a better condition than the worker. For that reason, from the Marxist perspective, the social question has its origin in the notion of capital or private property and as a consequence, the revolution of the labor movement.

Hence it is claimed, rightly in my view, that the pillar of Marxist doctrine is work, both from the standpoint of theoretical study and the practical actions of Marx himself (recall that the political home of Marxism is configured from the birth of the first labor movement in history, known as The First International Workers, founded in London by Karl Marx himself, in 1864).

Christian Social Doctrine

This current (also known as the social doctrine of the church) responds to the application of the rules of Christian morality to labor problems. Its sources are precisely the principles contained in the Commandments, the Gospels, the Epistles of St. Paul, and the philosophical principles held by St. Thomas Aquinas. From a socio-legal standpoint, the social doctrine of the church maintains an eclectic or intermediate position in the conflict between employer and employee. Thus, the social doctrine of the church argues that social issues should be overcome by the good faith of the three parties involved: employer, worker, and state.

For example, the encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891) states that (…) recognizing the current malaise in the economic side, the Catholic Church advises the worker, resignation, respect for private property, rejection of hatred and struggle class, the boss, give the operator a good deal, paying a fair wage and employ the superfluity of their assets in relieving needy, the State, using the laws and public administration for the welfare of the working class, recognize and strengthen private property and engage in collective conflicts, preventing them and allowing free association (…).

Other Modern Trends

  • Anarchism: From a Marxist perspective, it differs in that it does not allow intermediate stages (and socialism), aiming at the immediate removal of any regime, socializing the economy and destroying the State. The social issue here is overcome only when humans return to the primitive system of free labor.
  • Laborism: Assumes that the main mechanism for overcoming the social issue goes through the alignment of forces, an issue that occurs only when the working party is unified. The organization of all workers (through unions) is the only one capable of granting equality with the employer.
  • Cooperativism: Suggests the creation of a regime similar to cooperatives or guilds of the Middle Ages, but using a modern market system (providing some benefit to the guild, but preventing monopolies).
  • Agrarianism: Its rationale is that agriculture is the predominant activity for the satisfaction of basic needs, so the State must provide opportunities for the collectivization of land ownership, so that everyone can achieve a position of autonomy through material means.
  • Solidarity: Corresponds to the theoretical trends of so-called Utopian Socialism, which states that to achieve the goals promulgated by Marx, there is no need for violence (and, therefore, they deny the class struggle) but rather generating awareness of unity among all citizens.
  • Justicialism: A proper motion, exclusive to Argentina in the 1950s, during the government of Juan Domingo Peron. It is characterized by a heightened nationalism that requires the generation of strong protective legislation for the poor (known as the shirtless people). The solution to the social question, given by Justicialism, is the maintenance of a market economy combined with a welfare policy for the palliation of extreme poverty.

Labor Legislation in Chile

Synthetically, we can speak of three major periods in national legislation:

  • Period of Common Regulation: This period is characterized by work being regulated through tenancy (periods of oligarchy) and through the leasing of intangible services (which amounted, more or less, to what would now be a service provider contract for fees). There is no actual work contract.
  • Period Before 1924 (Social Issues): All labor legislation of the period is contained in the following laws:
    • 1838 Law on rooms for workers (1906)
    • 1990 Law on Sunday rest (1907)
    • 2951 Law, known as the law of the chair (1915)
    • 3170 Law on occupational accidents (1916)
    • 3186 Law on nurseries (1917)

    In all other respects, the common law still applies.

  • Period Post-1924 (Social Issue until 1931): Labor legislation is almost fully established until the creation of the Labor Code in 1931. The main laws are:
    • Decree Law 44, which created the Ministry of Health, Welfare, Labor, and Social Welfare (now Ministry) (1924)
    • Decree Law 261, which creates legal regulations on rental housing (1925)
    • 308 Decree Law on cheap construction (1925)
    • Decree Law 442 on maternity protection for workers (1925)
    • Decrees promulgated on August 10, 1925, to ratify the international conventions of the ILO (International Labour Organization)
    • Decree Law 2100, which creates the labor courts (1927)
    • Constitution of the Republic, 1925

Current State Agencies Working On Labor

Four groups of organisms can be distinguished in the field of socio-Chilean labor regulation:

  • Administrative Agencies: Corresponds to the field of design and implementation of social policy work. These include:
    • Ministry of Labor and Social Security
    • Directorate of Labor (and Labor Inspection)
  • Judicial Bodies: This is the scope of the application of justice in the workplace. These include:
    • Labor Court
    • Mediators and arbitrators in collective labor disputes
  • Technical Agencies: This is the scope of the audit and issuance of standards on labor. These include:
    • Superintendency of Social Security
    • Comptroller General of the Republic
  • Social Security Agencies: Corresponds to the field of planning and administration of social security in forecasting and health. These include:
    • Superintendency of Social Security
    • Superintendency of Pension Fund Administrators (AFP)
    • Superintendency of Health (ISAPRES)
    • Institute of Normalization (INP)

It should be remembered that our country was the first American nation to put an end to slavery. Indeed, in 1811 Chile passed a law known as freedom of the womb, and finally, defeating the forces of the Spanish Creole in 1823, on the occasion of Independence, the Constitution was created explicitly enshrining the absolute freedom of all slaves. As early as the conquest, it was largely due to the country having significantly fewer slaves than the rest of America. In line with this, Humeres Noguer states:

(…) Chile was one of the countries that had fewer slaves, both because it was a poor neighborhood as by harsh climate for people of color for its dryness and temperature variation, it was cheaper and because the use of Indian labor for the package granted or mita (…).