US Labor Laws

As in Western countries, the emphasis in the legal regulation of labor shifted to local control (within the industries and enterprises), collective agreements stand as an equal or almost equal legislative power of labor law, and in some countries, their importance in the legal regulation of labor exceeds the role of legislation.

The system of collective agreements in force in each country is a combination of so-called large-scale factory and collective bargaining. Large-scale collective agreements - nationwide sectoral agreements, as well as agreements covering industry as a whole. In some countries (Germany, France) distributed to the regional collective bargaining agreements, including in its scope of the enterprise within a particular industry or land department.

Unlike the traditional structure of collective and contractual work in the U.S. and European countries was that in the first case was dominated by the factory (branded) collective agreements, while the second - national sectoral agreements, supplemented in some countries agreements. Although this difference remained over the past decade in the structure of collective and contractual regulation of labor has changed. Excessive decentralization of collective bargaining in the United States and its excessive centralization in the European countries have entered into conflict with modern economic and social conditions, especially with the demands of scientific and technological progress. Hence, the opposite trend: in the U.S. - to centralize, in European countries - toward decentralization. Obviously, the optimal structure of the collective and contractual regulation of labor is somewhere in the middle between the American and European models.

Currently, all western countries there is a certain combination of centralized and decentralized collective and contractual regulation of labor, and the ratio between these two models of collective and contractual regulation of highly mobile and dependent on many industrial, economic and social factors.

Typical for many Western countries, collective bargaining agreement - is a lengthy document, which has very rich on the content of the normative part.

Issues of wages and salaries (tariff rates, allowances, fringe benefits), working time, rest time and other working conditions. But along with this collective agreements contain regulations on pension schemes (factory pensions and benefits), social and community service workers, regulation and organization of work, mode of operation, structure and employment, distribution of labor, occupational health and safety, disciplinary rules, rights of trade unions in enterprises, industrial training and vocational training, employment conditions and dismissal procedure for consideration of employment disputes, contractual limitations treaties. Often, the laws state that collective agreements may contain any provisions regarding the relationship of employers and employees.

To implement the right to collective bargaining are important legal framework of collective-contractual process, legal rules governing the right to collective bargaining and collective bargaining, its content, form, validity, process collective and contractual regulation of labor in general.

Differentiation of Labor Law

Differentiation of labor law - a complex, multifaceted, multi-faceted concept. In the literature of Western countries there are four types of such differentiation: the distinction between national labor law, the difference between the model species (families), employment law, labor law ...