Labour laws, labour code or employment laws are those that mediate the relationship between workers, employing entities, trade unions, and the government. Collective labour law relates to the tripartite relationship between employee, employer, and union.
The Railway Labor Act is a United States federal law that governs labor relations in the railroad and airline industries. The Act, enacted in 1926 and amended in 1934 and 1936, seeks to substitute bargaining, arbitration, and mediation for strikes to resolve labor disputes. Its provisions were originally enforced under the Board of Mediation, but they were later enforced under a National Mediation Board.
The National Labor Relations Act of 1935, also known as the Wagner Act, is a foundational statute of United States labor law that guarantees the right of private sector employees to organize into trade unions, engage in collective bargaining, and take collective action such as strikes. Central to the act was a ban on company unions. The act was written by Senator Robert F. Wagner, passed by the 74th United States Congress, and signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Strike action, also called labor strike, labour strike and industrial action in British English, or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became common during the Industrial Revolution, when mass labor became important in factories and mines. As striking became a more common practice, governments were often pushed to act. When government intervention occurred, it was rarely neutral or amicable. Early strikes were often deemed unlawful conspiracies or anti-competitive cartel action and many were subject to massive legal repression by state police, federal military power, and federal courts. Many Western nations legalized striking under certain conditions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Collective bargaining is a process of negotiation between employers and a group of employees aimed at agreements to regulate working salaries, working conditions, benefits, and other aspects of workers' compensation and rights for workers. The interests of the employees are commonly presented by representatives of a trade union to which the employees belong. A collective agreement reached by these negotiations functions as a labour contract between an employer and one or more unions, and typically establishes terms regarding wage scales, working hours, training, health and safety, overtime, grievance mechanisms, and rights to participate in workplace or company affairs. Such agreements can also include 'productivity bargaining' in which workers agree to changes to working practices in return for higher pay or greater job security.
Enterprise bargaining is an Australian term for a form of collective bargaining, in which wages and working conditions are negotiated at the level of the individual organisations, as distinct from sectoral collective bargaining across whole industries. Once established, they are legally binding on employers and employees that are covered by the Enterprise bargaining agreement. An Enterprise Agreement (EA) consists of a collective industrial agreement between either an employer and a trade union acting on behalf of employees or an employer and employees acting for themselves.
Union busting is a range of activities undertaken to disrupt or weaken the power of trade unions or their attempts to grow their membership in a workplace.
The National Labor Board (NLB) was an independent agency of the United States Government established on August 5, 1933, to handle labor disputes arising under the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA).
The Public Employees Fair Employment Act, more commonly known as the Taylor Law, is Article 14 of the state Civil Service Law, which defines the rights and limitations of unions for public employees in New York.
Canadian labour law is that body of law which regulates the rights, restrictions, and obligations of trade unions, workers, and employers in Canada.
The Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 is a UK Act of Parliament which regulates United Kingdom labour law. The Act applies in full in England and Wales and in Scotland, and partially in Northern Ireland.
Labor relations or labor studies is a field of study that can have different meanings depending on the context in which it is used. In an international context, it is a subfield of labor history that studies the human relations with regard to work in its broadest sense and how this connects to questions of social inequality. It explicitly encompasses unregulated, historical, and non-Western forms of labor. Here, labor relations define "for or with whom one works and under what rules. These rules determine the type of work, type and amount of remuneration, working hours, degrees of physical and psychological strain, as well as the degree of freedom and autonomy associated with the work." More specifically in a North American and strictly modern context, labor relations is the study and practice of managing unionized employment situations. In academia, labor relations is frequently a sub-area within industrial relations, though scholars from many disciplines including economics, sociology, history, law, and political science also study labor unions and labor movements. In practice, labor relations is frequently a subarea within human resource management. Courses in labor relations typically cover labor history, labor law, union organizing, bargaining, contract administration, and important contemporary topics.
The New Zealand Employment Relations Act 2000 is a statute of the Parliament of New Zealand. It was substantially amended by the Employment Relations Amendment Act 2001 and by the ERAA 2004.
A collective agreement, collective labour agreement (CLA) or collective bargaining agreement (CBA) is a written contract negotiated through collective bargaining for employees by one or more trade unions with the management of a company that regulates the terms and conditions of employees at work. This includes regulating the wages, benefits, and duties of the employees and the duties and responsibilities of the employer or employers and often includes rules for a dispute resolution process.
In Chile, workers have the right to form and join unions without prior authorization, and approximately 10% of the total work force is unionized.
Inequality of bargaining power in law, economics and social sciences refers to a situation where one party to a bargain, contract or agreement, has more and better alternatives than the other party. This results in one party having greater power than the other to choose not to take the deal and makes it more likely that this party will gain more favourable terms and grant them more negotiating power. Inequality of bargaining power is generally thought to undermine the freedom of contract, resulting in a disproportionate level of freedom between parties, and that it represents a place at which markets fail.
South African labour law regulates the relationship between employers, employees and trade unions in the Republic of South Africa.
A master contract or master agreement is a collective bargaining agreement which covers all unionized worksites in an industry, market or company, and which establishes the terms and conditions of employment common to all workers in the industry, market or company.
Saskatchewan Federation of Labour v Saskatchewan [2015] 1 SCR 245 is a Canadian labour law case on the right to strike.
