History

In 1941, Executive Order 8802 (or the Fair Employment Act) became the first law to prohibit
racial discrimination, although it only applied to the national defense industry. Later laws
include Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (and amendments), Title I of the Americans
with Disabilities Act of 1990, the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, and numerous state
laws with additional protections. The Fair Labor Standards Act regulates minimum wages
and overtime pay for certain employees who work more than 40 hours in a work week.
While working an employee must work a minimum of two hours in a day. Cases of
employment discrimination in the United States are most often subject to the jurisdiction of
the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal commission responsible for the
enforcement of the anti-discrimination laws. Once a case has been filed with the EEOC or
similar state agencies with concurrent jurisdiction, employees have a right to remove the case
to the courts with the permission of the agency, or in some instances, after the expiration of a
set time period. Employment law cases are heard in state or federal courts, depending upon
the issue, the size of the employer (the Civil Rights Act of 1964, for example, applies only to
employers with 15 or more employees), and the litigation strategy of the plaintiff.
Commonwealth v. Pullis (1806), establishing that unions were criminal conspiracies
in the Philadelphia Mayor's court
Commonwealth v. Hunt (1842), disapproving Pullis in the Massachusetts Supreme
Judicial Court, and establishing that unions were not necessarily criminal

labor law
legislation dealing with human beings in their capacity as workers or wage earners. The Industrial
Revolution, by introducing the machine and factory production, greatly expanded the class of workers
dependent on wages as their source of income. The terms of the labor contract, working conditions,
and the relations between workers and employers early became matters of public concern.
Early Labor Law
In England, Parliament was averse to legislating on subjects relating to workers because of the
prevailing policy of laissez-faire. The earliest factory law (1802) dealt with the health, safety, and
morals of children employed in textile mills, and subsequent laws regulated their hours and working
conditions. An act of 1833 provided for inspection to enforce the law. Young mine workers were first
protected in 1842, women in 1844. Although labor unions were legalized in 1825, agreements among
their members to seek better hours and wages were punishable as conspiracy under the common law
until they were legalized in 1871 and 1906.
In colonial America, labor laws limited a worker's ability to raise his wages and legalized such forced
labor systems as slavery and indentured servitude. Regulations were nonetheless passed limiting a
master's control over servants and slaves and in the 19th cent. labor legislation was passed to
improve working conditions. Federal employees were granted a 10-hr day in 1840, but the Supreme
Court did not recognize the legality of state legislation that limited the work day to 8 hrs until 1908.
Slavery ended with the Civil War and the legal basis for peonage and indentured servitude
disappeared by 1910.
As in Great Britain, labor organizing in the United States was discouraged by the common law
doctrine that unions represented a conspiracy against the public good. The Massachusetts supreme
court abolished the doctrine in 1842, but in the 19th and early 20th cent. courts often prohibited
unions for going on strike and generally granted prosecutors wide authority to indict union leaders for
violence or property damage that occurred during a strike. Sedition laws passed in World War I were
used to crush such unions as the Industrial Workers of the World.
U.S. Labor Law since the Early Twentieth Century
By the early 20th cent. many states had passed laws regulating child labor, minimum wages, and
working conditions. Maryland was the first state to pass (1902) workers' compensation for employees
injured on the job. The forerunner of the Dept. of Labor had been created in 1884 as a agency in the
Dept. of the Interior, and in 1913 it was elevated to cabinet status with the mandate to "foster,
promote, and develop the welfare of wage earners." Congress exempted (1916) unions from the
antitrust laws, and the use of injunctions in labor disputes, begun in 1877, was outlawed by Congress
in 1932, although the use of injunctions was reestablished by law (1947).
Popular unrest and massive poverty during the Great Depression led to a series of landmark labor
laws. The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (the Wagner Act) established the right of workers to
organize and required employers to accept collective bargaining as a ruling principle in industry. The
Social Security Act of 1935 created the basis for federal unemployment insurance. The Fair Labor
Standards Act, or Wages and Hours Act (1938), provided for minimum wages and overtime payments
for workers in interstate commerce, thus setting standards for many basic industries.
Strong antilabor sentiment after World War II, resulted in the Taft-Hartley Labor Act, which was
passed over the veto of President Truman in 1947. It made secondary boycott and closed shops
illegal and gave the President the power to secure an injunction to postpone for 80 days any strike
that might affect the national security. Under the act, officers of unions were required to file affidavits
that they were not members of the Communist party. Later the Federal Mediation and Conciliation
Service was established as an independent agency. Congressional investigations of labor-
management corruption led to the passage of the Landrum-Griffin Act in 1959. It guaranteed freedom
of speech and of assembly for union members, and it provided for the regular election of union
officers by secret ballot and for periodic and detailed financial reports by unions.
In the 1960s increased social activism once again produced a series of landmark labor bills. The
Work Hours Act of 1962 provided time-and-a-half pay for work over an 8-hour day or a 40-hour week;
the Civil Rights Act (1964) prohibited discrimination on the basis of race, sex, or religion; the Age
Discrimination Act in Employment (1967) protected older workers from discrimination; and the
Occupational Safety and Health Act (1970) created the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration and gave OSHA the power to establish workplace safety rules, inspect workplaces for
safety violations, and fine companies that violated safety rules. The Employee Retirement Income
Security Act of 1974 created a federal agency to insure many pension plans and established
regulations to protect them from mismanagement.
In the 1980s the pendulum swung back again, producing laws and legal decisions that limited labor
and the power of labor unions. Cutbacks in federal agencies reduced federal enforcement of many
work safety rules; officials appointed by the Reagan and Bush administrations attempted to reduce
labor regulations, arguing that they made U.S. industry less competitive in the world market. In 1990
the Supreme Court made it harder for companies to replace union workers with nonunion workers and
restricted the ability of a company to use bankruptcy laws to avoid paying pensions, two management
tactics that were widely used in the 1980s. By the late 1990s union membership had increased, but
the number of union members in the private sector and the percentage of union workers compared to
nonunion workers had fallen.

Individual labour law

Employment contract and At-will employment
The basic feature of labour 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 to protect employees, and facilitate a fluid labour 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]

Minimum wage

There may be law stating the minimum amount that a worker can be paid per hour. Australia,
Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Greece, Hungary, India, Ireland, Japan, Korea,
Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Paraguay, Portugal, Poland, Romania, Spain,
Taiwan, the United Kingdom, the United States, Vietnam 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.
1. 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]
Brazil in
1940
[5]
India in 1948, France in 1950,
[6]
and in the United Kingdom in 1998.
[7]
In the
European Union, 18 out of 25 member states currently have national minimum wages.
[8]


Working time (Eight-hour day)
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 1415 hours being the norm, and 16 not at all uncommon. Use of child labour
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.
[9]
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 labour law in the UK.
After England, Germany was the first European country to pass labour 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. 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 labour law was effectively enforced, in
particular after Waldeck-Rousseau 1884 law legalizing trade unions. With the Matignon
Accords, the Popular Front (193638) 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.
Health and safety (Occupational safety and health)
Other labour laws involve safety concerning workers. The earliest English factory law was
passed in 1802 and dealt with the safety and health of child textile workers.
Anti-discrimination law
This clause means that discrimination against employees is morally unacceptable and illegal,
on a variety of grounds, in particular racial discrimination or sexist discrimination.

Unfair dismissal, Wrongful dismissal, and At-will employment
Convention no. 158 of the International Labour Organization states that an employee "can't
be fired without any legitimate motive" and "before offering him the possibility to defend
himself". Thus, on April 28, 2006, after the unofficial repeal of the French First Employment
Contract (CPE), the Longjumeau (Essonne) conseil des prud'hommes (labour law court)
judged the New Employment Contract (CNE) contrary to international law, and therefore
"illegitimate" and "without any juridical value". The court considered that the two-years
period of "fire at will" (without any legal motive) was "unreasonable", and contrary to
Collective labour law
Collective labour law concerns the tripartite relationship between employer, employee and
trade unions. Trade unions, sometimes called "labour unions"
Trade unions
Some countries require unions to follow particular procedures before taking certain actions.
For example, some countries require that unions ballot the membership to approve a strike
or to approve using members' dues for political projects. Laws may guarantee the right to
join a union (banning employer discrimination), or remain silent in this respect. Some legal
codes may allow unions to place a set of obligations on their members, including the
requirement to follow a majority decision in a strike vote. Some restrict this, such as the
'right to work' legislation in some of the United States.
Strikes
Strike action is the weapon of the workers most associated with industrial disputes, and
certainly among the most powerful. In most countries, strikes are legal under a circumscribed
set of conditions. Among them may be that:
The strike is decided on by a prescribed democratic process. (Wildcat strikes are
illegal).
Sympathy strikes, against a company by which workers are not directly employed,
may be prohibited.
General strikes may be forbidden by a public order.
Certain categories of person may be forbidden to strike (airport personnel, health
personnel, teachers, police or firemen, etc.)
A boycott is a refusal to buy, sell, or otherwise trade with an individual or business who is
generally believed by the participants in the boycott to be doing something morally wrong.
Throughout history, workers have used tactics such as the go-slow, sabotage, or just not
turning up en-masse to gain more control over the workplace environment, or simply have to
work less. Some labour law explicitly bans such activity, none explicitly allows it.
Pickets (protest)
Picketing is a tactic which is often used by workers during strikes. They may congregate
outside the business they are striking against to make their presence felt, increase worker
participation, and dissuade (or prevent) strike breakers from entering the workplace. In many
countries, this activity is restricted by labour law, by more general law restricting
demonstrations, or sometimes by injunctions on particular pickets. For example, labour law
may restrict secondary picketing (picketing a business not directly connected with the
dispute, such as a supplier of materials), or flying pickets (mobile strikers who travel to join a
picket). There may be laws against obstructing others from going about their lawful business
(scabbing, for example, is lawful); making obstructive pickets illegal, and, in some countries,
such as Britain, there may be court orders made from time to time against pickets being in
particular places or behaving in particular ways (shouting abuse, for example).


Regulations
Regulation of unions and organizing
The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA, the "Wagner Act") gives private sector workers
the right to choose whether they wish to be represented by a union and establishes the
National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to hold elections for that purpose. As originally
enacted in 1935, the NLRA makes it illegal for employers to discriminate against workers
because of their union membership or retaliate against them for engaging in organizing
campaigns or other "concerted activities", to form "company unions", or to refuse to engage
in collective bargaining with the union that represents their employees.
The Taft-Hartley Act (also the "Labor-Management Relations Act"), passed in 1947,
loosened some of the restrictions on employers, changed NLRB election procedures, and
added a number of new limitations on unions. The Act, among other things, prohibits
jurisdictional strikes and secondary boycotts by unions, and authorizes individual states to
pass "right-to-work laws", regulates pension and other benefit plans established by unions
and provides that federal courts have jurisdiction to enforce collective bargaining agreements.
The United States Congress subsequently tightened those restrictions on unions in the Labor
Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959, which also regulates the internal affairs
of all private sector unions, providing for minimum standards for unions' internal disciplinary
proceedings, federal oversight for unions' elections of their own officers, and fiduciary
standards for union officers' use of union funds. Congress has since expanded the NLRB's
jurisdiction to health care institutions, with unique rules governing organizing and strikes
against those employers.
Most states provide public employees with limited statutory protections; a few permit public
employees to strike in support of their demands in some circumstances. Some states,
however, particularly in the South, make it illegal for a governmental entity to enter into a
collective bargaining agreement with a union.
The NLRA does not cover agricultural or domestic employees. A few states have enacted
labor laws similar to the NLRA covering farm workers.
Finally, the NLRA does not cover employees in the railroad and airline industries. Those
workers are covered by the Railway Labor Act, first passed in 1926, then amended in 1936 to
cover airline employees. The RLA creates a wholly different structure for resolving labor
disputes, requiring bargaining under indirect governmental supervision and permitting strikes
only in limited circumstances.
The Norris-LaGuardia Act of 1932 outlawed the issuance of injunctions in labor disputes by
federal courts. While the Act does not prevent state courts from issuing injunctions, it ended
what some observers called "government by injunction", in which the federal courts used
injunctions to prevent unions from striking, organizing and, in some cases, even talking to
workers or entering certain parts of a state. Roughly half the states have enacted their own
version of the Norris-LaGuardia Act.
For the most part the NLRA and RLA displace state laws that attempt to regulate the right to
organize, to strike and to engage in collective bargaining. The NLRB has exclusive
jurisdiction to determine whether an employer has engaged in an unfair labor practice and to
decide what remedies should be provided. States and local governments can, on the other
hand, impose requirements when acting as market participants, such as requiring that all
contractors sign a project labor agreement to avoid strikes when building a public works
project, that they could not if they were attempting to regulate those employers' labor
relations directly.
NLRB v. Mackay Radio & Telegraph Co. 304 U.S. 333 (1938), that striking workers
remain "employees"
United States v. Congress of Industrial Organizations, 335 U.S. 106 (1948), holding
that unions advocating members vote for particular Congress candidates did not
violate the Federal Corrupt Practices Act as amended by the Labor Management
Relations Act

Regulation of wages, benefits and working conditions

The Fair Labor Standards Act
[6]
of 1938 (FLSA) establishes minimum wage and overtime
rights for most private sector workers, with a number of exemptions and exceptions.
Congress amended the Act in 1974 to cover governmental employees, leading to a series of
United States Supreme Court decisions in which the Court first held that the law was
unconstitutional, then reversed itself to permit the FLSA to cover governmental employees.
The FLSA does not preempt state and local governments from providing greater protections
under their own laws. A number of states have enacted higher minimum wages and extended
their laws to cover workers who are excluded under the FLSA or to provide rights that federal
law ignores.
Local governments have also adopted a number of "living wage" laws that require those
employers that contract with them to pay higher minimum wages and benefits to their
employees. The federal government, along with many state governments, likewise require
employers to pay the prevailing wage, which typically reflects the standards established by
unions' collective bargaining agreements in the area, to workers on public works projects.
The Employee Retirement Income Security Act
[7]
establishes standards for the funding and
operation of pension and health care plans provided by employers to their employees. The
ERISA preempts most state legislation that attempts to regulate how such plans are
administered and, to a great extent, what types of health care coverage they provide. ERISA
also preempts state law claims that an employer discriminated against employees in order to
prevent them from obtaining the benefits they would have earned otherwise or to retaliate
against them for asserting their rights.
The Family and Medical Leave Act,
[8]
passed in 1993, requires employers to provide workers
with twelve weeks of unpaid medical leave and continuing medical benefit coverage in order
to attend to certain medical conditions of close relatives or themselves. Many states have
comparable statutory provisions; some states have offered greater protections.
The Occupational Safety and Health Act,
[9]
signed into law in 1970 by President Richard
Nixon, creates specific standards for workplace safety. The Act has spawned years of
litigation by industry groups that have challenged the standards limiting the amount of
permitted exposure to chemicals such as benzene. The Act also provides for protection for
"whistleblowers" who complain to governmental authorities about unsafe conditions while
allowing workers the right to refuse to work under unsafe conditions in certain circumstances.
The Act allows states to take over the administration of OSHA in their jurisdictions, so long
as they adopt state laws at least as protective of workers' rights as under federal law. More
than half of the states have done so.

Job security in the United States
Job security in the United States depends more upon the economy and business conditions
than in most countries because of the capitalist system and the minimal government
intervention in businesses. Job security in the United States can vary a lot since the supply
and demand for jobs depends on the economy. If the economy is good, companies experience
more demand for their products and create more jobs, which increases job security. However,
in periods of economic slowdown or recession, companies try to cut costs and layoff workers
which decreases job security. Importantly, employment in the United States is at will,
meaning that apart from certain limited exceptions, an employee's job security is generally at
the mercy of the employer.
In the aftermath of the dot com boom, computer related jobs experienced low job security
whereas the situation was just the opposite prior to that. Since 2005 automotive sector jobs
have experienced very low job security, and since 2007, real estate and mortgage related jobs
have seen a big decrease in job security.
A growing number of American men have dealt with their unemployment and feelings of job
insecurity by not returning to work. In 1960 5% of men ages 3055 were unemployed
whereas roughly 13% were unemployed in 2006. The New York Times attributes a large
portion of this to blue collar and professional men refusing to work in jobs that they are
overqualified for or do not provide adequate benefits in contrast to their previous jobs