Labour Law Introduction and Scope

Labour Law Introduction

• Law is a set of rules for coexistence.
• Public law governs state-individual relations (administrative, procedural, criminal, taxation).
• Private law governs individual-individual relations (civil, commercial, international).
• Trade union law is concerned with collective bargaining agreements

Scope of Labour Law

• Workers' statute Art. 1: A set of social relationships where people carry out services for others.
• It applies to voluntary, remunerated, and dependent relationships involving services rendered on behalf of another person, based on personal qualifications, expertise, and skills.

Labour Throughout History

• Ancient Times: Manual labor, worker-slave relationship, only duties imposed by the master.
• Roman Empire: Distinction between labor (hard work) and work (creative activity), contracts between employers and freemen (e.g., locatio conductio operis, locatio conductio operarum).
• Middle Ages: Workers as slaves, freemen, and serfs with protection and land in exchange for harvest.
• Pre-Capitalism: Development of cities and trades; guild system.
• Capitalism: Industrial revolution, growth of factories, emigration, political and economic liberalism, exploitation of workers.

Guiding Principles of Labor Law

• Limitation of parties' free will (unlike civil law principle).
• More favorable rules and beneficial conditions (protected by law).
• Inalienability of worker rights (cannot be waived).

Factors Determining Labour Law

• Sociological factor: changes in work organization and population structure.
• Legal factor: liberal individualistic law and its dysfunction (freedom of contracting, unionism prohibition).
• Social factor: labor movement (worker collective actions, associations).

State Intervention in Labour Relations

• Aims to regulate working hours, employer/employee interests.
• Labour courts address disputes regarding labour matters.
• Specific judicial bodies (social labor courts, superior courts of justice, supreme court) handle labour issues.

Sources of Labour Law

• Shared with other legal systems (law/custom).
• General rules and sectorial rules (workers statutes, employment contract customs, general legal principles).
• National and international rules (Spanish constitution, collective agreements, employment contracts, International regulations and directives EU, Conventions and recommendations of ILO, international treaties, international jurisprudence).

Spanish Constitution and Democratic Rule of Law

• Principles of social and democratic rule of law (freedom, equality, justice, political pluralism).
• Recognition of trade unions and associations as representatives of collective interests.
• Fundamental rights, rights to work, sufficient remuneration, right to adopt collective conflict measures

International Labour Law -

• International labour organization (ILO)
• Bilateral and multilateral agreements
• EU legislation

Employment Contracts

• Workers' Statute (Art 1) defines employment contracts as voluntary, personal services rendered, dependent relationship to another party, remuneration . If element are missing it is not an employment contract
• Standard conditions, exchange of interest
• Probation period (limited time frame for trial period)

Types of Contracts

• Training contracts (alternating, temporary)
• Contracts to obtain professional practice
• Internship agreement
• Hand-over contract
• Indefinite contract
• Permanent discontinuous contract
• Part-time contract (after reform 2022)

Working Day

• Essential condition of labour relationship, limiting work performance.
• Working hours are regulated based on collective agreements or employment contracts.
• Maximum working hours (ordinary working day, 40 hrs a week).
• Breaks (rests)
• Protection of workers (health and safety).

Overtime

• Work performed beyond ordinary working hours.

Night Time Work

• Restrictions on working during night time hours, especially for minors.
• Regulations relating to night time conditions.

Vacations

• Duration and conditions (minimum 30 calendar days).
• Obligations related to vacation dates -
• Vacation period not compensated financially

Salarly

• Salary as the total economic compensation for work(cash or kind).
• Minimum Interprofessional Wage (minimum wage)

Remuneration Systems

• Techniques for establishing salary levels (job-based, expertise-based, or performance-based).

Labour Mobility

• Functional mobility: employer's ability to reassign tasks to an employee (horizontal/vertical).
• Geographic Mobility: changing workplaces and residence due to work. Additional considerations relating to transfer.

Limitations on Functional Mobility

• Heteronomous limits: imposed by constitutions.
• Autonomous limits: determined by contract (conventional, contractual)

Company Succession

• Transfer of undertakings (change of ownership).
• Effects on labor relationships. By inter vivos transmission or mortis causa.
• Subrogation.

Employee Rights

• Informative duties.
• Collective Agreements.
• Consultation periods
• Employee responsibilities.

Dismissal

• Collective, objective, disciplinary, and procedural processes.
• Specificities (cause, timeframes)

Right to Participate in the Company

• Trade unions and workers' representatives are key actors in the labour process
• Relevant duties and rights of workforce representatives

Procedure to a dismissal

• Procedure to follow.
• Conciliation procedures.

Alternative Dispute Resolution

• Mechanisms to negotiate or resolve disputes through mediation, arbitration or conciliation.
• Rights related to judicial protection

Labour Disputes

• Means of resolving labour disputes
• Strike rights
• Lock-out (shutdown of workers)