Documents Davidov, Guy 15 results

"Labour laws are facing an enforcement crisis: a large and increasing number of employers fail to obey them. This paper begins by putting forward a number of reasons for this development, which carries with it harsh consequences for many workers around the world. It then warns against the trend towards ‘soft law' solutions that include a voluntarist component. Although these ‘soft' regulations that aim to create positive incentives could certainly be useful in the labour law context, when invoked as a solution to compliance problems they translate into an unjustified lowering of standards. The paper then moves to examine solutions used or proposed in the context of cleaning and security workers in the Israeli public sector, as a case study. A proposed solution in the context of identifying the real employer, that includes a voluntary component, is criticized as an example of unjustified deregulation. Two additional solutions – one to reject repeat offenders and the other to prohibit money-losing contracts – are used to show that incentive schemes can be used successfully to improve compliance without voluntary components that result in lowering standards."

"At the core of all societies and economies are human beings deploying their energies and talents in productive activities - that is, at work. The law governing human productive activity is a large part of what determines outcomes in terms of social justice, material wellbeing, and the sustainability of both. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that work is heavily regulated.
This Handbook examines the 'law of work', a term that includes legislation setting employment standards, collective labour law, workplace discrimination law, the law regulating the contract of employment, and international labour law. It covers the regulation of relations between employer and employee, as well as labour unions, but also discussions on the contested boundaries and efforts to expand the scope of some laws regulating work beyond the traditional boundaries.
Written by a team of experts in the field of labour law, the Handbook offers a comprehensive review and analysis, both theoretical and critical. It includes 60 chapters, divided into four parts. Part A establishes the fundamentals, including the historical development of the law of work, why it is needed, the conceptual building blocks, and the unsettled boundaries. Part B considers the core concerns of the law of work, including the contract of employment doctrines, main protections in employment legislation, the regulation of collective relations, discrimination, and human rights. Part C looks at the international and transnational dimension of the law of work. The final Part examines overarching themes, including discussion of recent developments such as gig work, online work, artificial intelligence at work, sustainable development, amongst others."

"‘Employment at will' systems, in which employers have a right to dismiss employees for any reason or no reason at all, have been (rightly) criticised for allowing the arbitrary imposition of significant harms. ‘Just cause' arrangements, in which employers bear the burden of showing a justified reason for dismissals, in a process which often gives unions significant involvement, have been strongly resisted for causing inflexibility. Israeli labour law, which is relied upon here as an example, suffers from a combination of both extremes. UK law, which could be seen to offer a middle ground, is seen by labour law critics as offering too little protection for workers, and by the government as offering too much. This article searches for other intermediate solutions. Four are discussed: the flexicurity system which is based on broader security provided by the State, rather than job security; a default (rather than mandatory) job security rule, powered by ‘soft law' regulations; a prohibition on ‘bad faith' dismissals, requiring the employee to prove a ‘bad' cause; and finally, a system based on ‘rich' procedural guarantees to ensure just cause. This article focuses on the last one, offering a case study of a new model recently adopted in some collective agreements in Israel. In this model, a detailed process has to be followed to ensure that dismissals are not arbitrary, but at the end of the day, the decision is left solely with the employer. We will discuss the experience with this model so far and whether it offers a balanced solution for employers, workers and society at large. Our discussion is based, among other things, on an empirical analysis of job security perceptions as learned from questionnaires we administered to several groups of Israeli employees."

"Labour law is widely considered to be in crisis by scholars of the field. This crisis has an obvious external dimension - labour law is attacked for impeding efficiency, flexibility, and development; vilified for reducing employment and for favouring already well placed employees over less fortunate ones; and discredited for failing to cover the most vulnerable workers and workers in the "informal sector". These are just some of the external challenges to labour law. There is also an internal challenge, as labour lawyers themselves increasingly question whether their discipline is conceptually coherent, relevant to the new empirical realities of the world of work, and normatively salient in the world as we now know it. This book responds to such fundamental challenges by asking the most fundamental questions: What is labour law for? How can it be justified? And what are the normative premises on which reforms should be based? There has been growing interest in such questions in recent years. In this volume the contributors seek to take this body of scholarship seriously and also to move it forward. Its aim is to provide, if not answers which satisfy everyone, intellectually nourishing food for thought for those interested in understanding, explaining and interpreting labour laws - whether they are scholars, practitioners, judges, policy-makers, or workers and employers. "

"The article focuses on the term ‘worker', which is replacing the traditional term ‘employee' in a growing number of Acts and Regulations. The interpretation given to this term by the Employment Appeal Tribunal is reviewed, and a different interpretation is suggested, with the aim of better achieving the purpose of the new category. It is argued that the protection afforded to ‘workers' should cover every work relationship that is characterised by significant dependency on the putative employer, even without the presence of democratic deficits (or subordination). It is shown that such a solution fits the logic of intermediate categories, as well as the legislated definition of the ‘worker' category."

"The article examines the question of who should be considered the legal employer in triangular employment relationships. It is argued that outsourcing of employer responsibilities to temporary work agencies is illegitimate with regard to long-term employees and must be curtailed; further, that even in the case of short-term ('traditional') employment through agencies, there is reason to place some employer responsibilities with the user firm. The suggested solution supports regulations directed at preventing agency employment abuse, as currently exist in some European countries, but at the same time would place employer responsibilities with both agency and user firm, jointly and severally."

"This article provides justifications for ‘just cause' laws that are constantly under attack in many European countries, while arguing that in some cases amendments might be necessary to ensure the possibility of swift, inexpensive dismissals when a just cause indeed exists. The security provided to employees by ‘just cause' laws is justified on two main grounds: preventing unnecessary harm to the social/psychological well-being of workers who depend on a particular relationship for such purposes; and ensuring a fair ‘price' in terms of security in return for workers' submission to a democratically deficient regime. A number of considerations to the contrary - the impact on ‘outsiders', potential inefficiencies and the infringement on employers' autonomy -are discussed but shown to be rather insignificant in magnitude (with the exception of small employers who are indeed usually excluded from the scope of ‘just cause' laws)."