History and Sources of Labor Law: A Comprehensive Overview
I. History and Sources of Labor Law
Theme I: Labor Delivery Through History
I. The Social Work Done and the Legal System
a. The Social Work Done
We can speak of work in two ways: as human activity (work) and as a result of human activity (opus). In a generic sense, work is any activity or effort of a person who pursues a useful, more or less immediate or concrete goal. Humans are fundamentally workers who apply effort to transform nature, which is hostile and hinders the satisfaction of their needs for survival. Thus, work is a natural requirement, an indispensable condition of human life itself, requiring the following basic considerations for its understanding:
- Work is a means of satisfying human needs. It is a useful, productive effort that is directly usable by humans. Note the following:
- Humans meet their needs as they obtain a result from their effort. This result can be used for direct consumption or to barter for goods with which to obtain other necessities.
- Work is inevitable. The human race is forced to contend with the forces of nature to get what they need. This struggle requires effort, both manual and intellectual.
- The relationship between the work of humans and the motive of the activity is reflected in the effort used to obtain goods and meet their needs.
- Currently, the creativity of human labor is becoming increasingly important. The mere struggle with the forces of nature is giving way to building assets that did not exist before. The sense of craftsmanship in work is diminishing, and tasks are becoming fragmented.
- Human work has a social dimension based on the following: Work is a means of connection between individuals, either by sharing the outcome or by integrating individuals into collective work. Consequently, there is social stratification influenced by work activity, causing a person’s social status in the hierarchical context of the general human structure. This leads to phenomena such as social differentiation based on different human participation in productive work or social integration of all components into a higher unity; circumstances that are common in primary social groups and more difficult in complex societies.
However, not all human work falls within the scope of modern labor law. For this, it is necessary to consider certain aspects: freedom, alienation, dependency, and compensation.
b. Work and the Legal System
The social reality of work can be viewed and regulated by the law. The legal system cannot remain indifferent to a reality that affects most members of a community.
The law is a human structure of otherness, which necessarily presupposes the existence of a plurality of subjects and a relationship between them, and in many cases, the presence of an object whose ownership, possession, or exchange determines the relationship between subjects.
The law is always behind social facts. The social fact of human labor can enter the field of law through several channels:
- The law can base its management of work on the very person who carries out the work. From this perspective, it will focus on the legal regulation of the worker, their capacity, their right to work or not, and their duty to work.
- The work itself, the output from human labor, although existentially inseparable from the person who performs it, is a readily identifiable fact and may also be the point of connection between law and the social reality of human labor. From this perspective, the legal system can contemplate human work activity or the work effort of a person as a legal asset that is traded. As the activity of a person can be made available to another or others for a fee or compensation, the law aims to regulate a material object, which is the work itself, the activity carried out by a subject.
- The legal regulatory system of human labor can be based on the relationship created and maintained between two people through work. This relationship is social in nature, but when contemplated by the law, it is elevated to the category of a legal relationship. From this perspective, the law designed to regulate human work activity will be a law of legal relationships between subjects with rights and obligations arising precisely from the work done and established from it.
The relationship comes to the fore, and its regulation leads to the legal consequences that the system links to the social fact of work. Different legal systems have not considered exclusively one of these three possible points of connection, but they emphasize one or the other.
II. Social Reality as Provided by Labor Relations; Review of its Defining Features
1. The Social Reality Regulated by Labor Relations
The subject matter of labor relations is not all productive human activity, but a plot that is delimited by work that is both free, as an employee, subordinate, and paid.
2. Review of its Defining Notes
a) Freedom
The work has to be voluntary. In our social system, institutions of forced or coercive labor (slavery, servitude) have been relegated to the past by the principle of freedom of work enshrined in the Spanish Constitution (Articles 1.1, 17.1, 35). The person performing the activity is free, not only when making the decision to work but also throughout the development of all their work. Under Convention No. 29 of the ILO in 1930, there was already mention of the abolition of slavery.
Moreover, such freedom is recognized in international standards ratified by Spain: The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states that “no one shall be held in slavery or servitude” and that “no one shall be required to perform forced or compulsory labor.”
The legal expression of that freedom is the employment contract, which is implemented through the voluntary exchange of work for wages.
b) Alienation
Labor relations regulate social relations of alienation, and therefore the work that is the subject of legal regulation is one that benefits a person other than the producer of the good or service provider, that is, work for another. The basic difference between paid employment and self-employment lies in the attribution of work output. Furthermore, this initial allocation occurs prior to production.
The legal title under which this allocation takes place can be of a very different nature, as has happened at different times: relationship of domination (slavery), relationship of empire (serfdom), and contractual relationship (common or special).