lawyer

The basic feature of labor law in almost every country is that the rights and obligations of the worker and the employer between one another are mediated through the contract of employment between the two. This has been the case since the collapse of feudalism and is the core reality of modern economic relations. Many terms and conditions of the contract are however implied by legislation or common law, in such a way as to restrict the freedom of people to agree to certain things in order to protect employees, and facilitate a fluid labor market. In the U.S. for example, majority of state laws allow for employment to be "at will", meaning the employer can terminate an employee from a position for any reason, so long as the reason is not an illegal reason, including a termination in violation of public policy. [ 1 ]

One example in many countries [ 2 ] is the duty to provide written particulars of employment with the essentialia negotii (Latin for essential terms) to an employee. This aims to allow the employee to know concretely what to expect and is expected; in terms of wages, holiday rights, notice in the event of dismissal, job description and so on. An employer may not legally offer a contract in which the employer pays the worker less than a minimum wage. An employee may not for instance agree to a contract which allows an employer to dismiss them unfairly. There are certain categories that people may simply not agree to because they are deemed categorically unfair. However, this depends entirely on the particular legislation of the country in which the work is. [ 3 ]

There may be law stating the minimum amount that a worker can be paid per hour. Australia, Canada, China, Belgium, France, Greece, Hungary, India, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Paraguay, Portugal, Poland, Romania, Spain, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, the United States and others have laws of this kind. The minimum wage is usually different from the lowest wage determined by the forces of supply and demand in a free market. and therefore acts as a price floor. Each country sets its own minimum wage laws and regulations, and while a majority of industrialized countries has a minimum wage, many developing countries have not.

Minimum wages are regulated and stipulated also in some countries that lack specific laws. In Sweden, for instance, minimum wages are negotiated between the labour market parties (unions and employer organisations) through collective agreements that also cover non-union workers and non-organised employers.

Minimum wage laws were first introduced nationally in the United States in 1938, [ 4 ] India in 1948, France in 1950, [ 5 ] and in the United Kingdom in 1998. [ 6 ] In the European Union. 18 out of 25 member states currently have national minimum wages. [ 7 ]

Before the Industrial Revolution. the workday varied between 11 and 14 hours. With the growth of industrialism and the introduction of machinery, longer hours became far more common, with 14–15 hours being the norm, and 16 not at all uncommon. Use of child labor was commonplace, often in factories. In England and Scotland in 1788, about two-thirds of persons working in the new water-powered textile factories were children. [ 8 ] The eight-hour movement 's struggle finally led to the first law on the length of a working day, passed in 1833 in England, limiting miners to 12 hours, and children to 8 hours. The 10-hour day was established in 1848, and shorter hours with the same pay were gradually accepted thereafter. The 1802 Factory Act was the first labor law in the UK.

After England, Germany was the first European country to pass labor laws; Chancellor Bismarck 's main goal being to undermine the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). In 1878, Bismarck instituted a variety of anti-socialist measures, but despite this, socialists continued gaining seats in the Reichstag. The Chancellor, then, adopted a different approach to tackling socialism. In order to appease the working class, he enacted a variety of paternalistic social reforms, which became the first type of social security. The year 1883 saw the passage of the Health Insurance Act, which entitled workers to health insurance; the worker paid two-thirds, and the employer one-third, of the premiums. Accident insurance was provided in 1884, while old age pensions and disability insurance were established in 1889. Other laws restricted the employment of women and children. These efforts, however, were not entirely successful; the working class largely remained unreconciled with Bismarck's conservative government.

In France, the first labour law was voted in 1841. However, it limited only under-age miners' hours, and it was not until the Third Republic that labor law was effectively enforced, in particular after Waldeck-Rousseau 1884 law legalizing trade unions. With the Matignon Accords. the Popular Front (1936–38) enacted the laws mandating 12 days (2 weeks) each year of paid vacations for workers and the law limiting to 40 hours the workweek (outside of overtime).

• Lochner v. New York. 198 U.S. 45 (1905), a notorious, and now defunct case by the US Supreme Court that regulation of working time (for bakeries) to limit workers to a 10 hour day.

Other labor laws involve safety concerning workers. The earliest English factory law was drafted in 1802 and dealt with the safety and health of child textile workers.