Wage regulation refers to attempts by a government to regulate wages paid to citizens.
Minimum wage regulation attempts to set an hourly, or other periodic monetary standard for pay at work. A recent example was the U.K. National Minimum Wage Act 1998. Germany is currently debating whether to introduce its own.
The National Minimum Wage Act 1998 creates a minimum wage across the United Kingdom, which from 1 April 2018 was £7.83 per hour for workers aged over 25, £7.38 per hour for workers aged 21 to 24, and £5.90 per hour for workers aged 18 to 20.
Collective agreements between trade unions and employers can regulate wages of workers according to the needs of the business.
Arbitration involves makes collective agreements between trade unions and employers legally binding and mediated through a state appointed judge or magistrate.
An economic analysis of the law holds very simply that any intervention in a contract between two parties creates an inefficient labour market. Wages kept artificially high, by imposing any administrative or monetary costs on employers distorts the labour market equilibrium. For a national economy in a globalised world, that means jobs will go overseas and the unemployment rate rises. Major proponents of this sort of labour economics include Nobel Prize winner from the University of Chicago, Professor Gary Becker. Professor Becker keeps a blog with well-known academic and judge, Richard Posner. Posner is a lawyer and economist, and wrote a book called Economic Analysis of Law. His starting assumption is that unions are the cartelisation of the labour market. Both would agree, that if its aim is to improve the living standards of society, wage regulation defeats itself. Posner says, “Economics is not a theory about consciousness. Behaviour is rational when it conforms to the model of rational choice, whatever the state of mind of the chooser.” [1] So any conscious attempt to improve working standards are impossible under this view.
Gary Stanley Becker was an American economist and empiricist. He was a professor of economics and sociology at the University of Chicago. Described as "the most important social scientist in the past 50 years" by The New York Times, Becker was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1992 and received the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007. A 2011 survey of economics professors named Becker their favorite living economist over the age of 60, followed by Ken Arrow and Robert Solow.
Richard Allen Posner is an American jurist and economist who was a United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago from 1981 until 2017, and is a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School. He is a leading figure in the field of law and economics, and was identified by The Journal of Legal Studies as the most cited legal scholar of the 20th century.
Australian labour law concerns Commonwealth, state, and common law on rights and duties of workers, unions and employers in Australia. Australian labour law, has a dual structure, where some employment issues and relationships are governed by Commonwealth laws, and others are governed by state laws or the common law. It shares a heritage with laws across the Commonwealth of Nations, UK labour law and standards set by the International Labour Organization, the Australian legislature and courts have a built a comprehensive charter of rights at work.
Labour law is the area of law most commonly relating to the relationship between trade unions, employers and the government.
A minimum wage is the lowest remuneration that employers can legally pay their workers—the price floor below which workers may not sell their labor. Most countries had introduced minimum wage legislation by the end of the 20th century.
This aims to be a complete article list of economics topics:
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. The collective agreements reached by these negotiations usually set out wage scales, working hours, training, health and safety, overtime, grievance mechanisms, and rights to participate in workplace or company affairs.
Employment is a relationship between two parties, usually based on a contract where work is paid for, where one party, which may be a corporation, for profit, not-for-profit organization, co-operative or other entity is the employer and the other is the employee. Employees work in return for payment, which may be in the form of an hourly wage, by piecework or an annual salary, depending on the type of work an employee does or which sector she or he is working in. Employees in some fields or sectors may receive gratuities, bonus payment or stock options. In some types of employment, employees may receive benefits in addition to payment. Benefits can include health insurance, housing, disability insurance or use of a gym. Employment is typically governed by employment laws, regulations or legal contracts.
A wage is monetary compensation paid by an employer to an employee in exchange for work done. Payment may be calculated as a fixed amount for each task completed, or at an hourly or daily rate, or based on an easily measured quantity of work done.
United Kingdom labour law regulates the relations between workers, employers and trade unions. People at work in the UK benefit from a minimum charter of employment rights, which are found in various Acts, Regulations, common law and equity. This includes the right to a minimum wage of £7.83 for over 25-year-olds under the National Minimum Wage Act 1998. The Working Time Regulations 1998 give the right to 28 days paid holidays, breaks from work, and attempts to limit excessively long working hours. The Employment Rights Act 1996 gives the right to leave for child care, and the right to request flexible working patterns. The Pensions Act 2008 gives the right to be automatically enrolled in a basic occupational pension, whose funds must be protected according to the Pensions Act 1995.
Featherbedding is the practice of hiring more workers than are needed to perform a given job, or to adopt work procedures which appear pointless, complex and time-consuming merely to employ additional workers. The term "make-work" is sometimes used as a synonym for featherbedding.
Labour power is a key concept used by Karl Marx in his critique of capitalist political economy. Marx distinguished between the capacity to do work, labour power, from the physical act of working, labour. Labour power exists in any kind of society, but on what terms it is traded or combined with means of production to produce goods and services has historically varied greatly.
Finnish national income policy agreements or comprehensive income policy agreements are tripartite agreements between Finnish trade unions, employers' organizations, and the Finnish government. They are policy documents covering a wide range of economic and political issues, such as salaries, taxation, pensions, unemployment benefits, and housing costs. They represent collective bargaining taken to its logical maximum, reaching virtually all wage-earners. Their enforcement is made easier by the universal validity of collective labour agreements. However, they are voluntary agreements and are not considered government legislation, i.e. they do not represent central planning of the economy.
United States labor law sets the rights and duties for employees, labor unions, and employers in the United States. Labor law's basic aim is to remedy the "inequality of bargaining power" between employees and employers, especially employers "organized in the corporate or other forms of ownership association". Over the 20th century, federal law created minimum social and economic rights, and encouraged state laws to go beyond the minimum to favor employees. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 requires a federal minimum wage, currently $7.25 but higher in 28 states, and discourages working weeks over 40 hours through time-and-a-half overtime pay. There are no federal or state laws requiring paid holidays or paid family leave: the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 creates a limited right to 12 weeks of unpaid leave in larger employers. There is no automatic right to an occupational pension beyond federally guaranteed social security, but the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 requires standards of prudent management and good governance if employers agree to provide pensions, health plans or other benefits. The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 requires employees have a safe system of work.
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 government contracting, a prevailing wage is defined as the hourly wage, usual benefits and overtime, paid to the majority of workers, laborers, and mechanics within a particular area.
Labour in India refers to employment in the economy of India. In 2012, there were around 487 million workers in India, the second largest after China. Of these over 94 percent work in unincorporated, unorganised enterprises ranging from pushcart vendors to home-based diamond and gem polishing operations. The organised sector includes workers employed by the government, state-owned enterprises and private sector enterprises. In 2008, the organised sector employed 27.5 million workers, of which 17.3 million worked for government or government owned entities.
In economics, a monopsony is a market structure in which a single buyer substantially controls the market as the major purchaser of goods and services offered by many would-be sellers. In the microeconomic theory of monopsony, a single entity is assumed to have market power over sellers as the only purchaser of a good or service, much in the same manner that a monopolist can influence the price for its buyers in a monopoly, in which only one seller faces many buyers.
Indian labour law refers to laws regulating labour in India. Traditionally, Indian governments at federal and state level have sought to ensure a high degree of protection for workers, but in practice, this differs due to form of government and because labour is a subject in the concurrent list of the Indian Constitution.
European labour law regulates basic transnational standards of employment and partnership at work in the European Union and countries adhering to the European Convention on Human Rights.
The Theory of Wages is a book by the British economist John R. Hicks published in 1932. It has been described as a classic microeconomic statement of wage determination in competitive markets. It anticipates a number of developments in distribution and growth theory and remains a standard work in labour economics.
International labour law is the body of rules spanning public and private international law which concern the rights and duties of employees, employers, trade unions and governments in regulating the workplace. The International Labour Organization and the World Trade Organization have been the main international bodies involved in reforming labour markets. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have indirectly driven changes in labour policy by demanding structural adjustment conditions for receiving loans or grants. Issues regarding Conflict of laws arise, determined by national courts, when people work in more than one country, and supra-national bodies, particularly in the law of the European Union, has a growing body of rules regarding labour rights.