Equal Rights? Social Inequalities and the Compliance of Labour Law

  • In the German context of non-standard work, the protection of labour law is one of the most developed labour legislations in the world. By labour law standard and non-standard workers should be treated equally and a substantive understanding of equality at work is achieved. However, on a micro sociological level different practices regarding the compliance of la-bour law can be stated. Not every employer entitles non-standard workers according to la-bour law. But: In spite of feeling discriminated or knowing that they are being discriminated non-standard and sometimes even standard employees accept such incorrect treatment. The research question that arises here is: Why do employees not demand the compliance of la-bour law, although they had the right to. This question is crucial for understanding how la-bour law is being applied. Our empirical study shows that the non-compliance of labour law is not only subject of legal conflicts being brought to court. It is also due to employees not claiming their legitimate rights. From aIn the German context of non-standard work, the protection of labour law is one of the most developed labour legislations in the world. By labour law standard and non-standard workers should be treated equally and a substantive understanding of equality at work is achieved. However, on a micro sociological level different practices regarding the compliance of la-bour law can be stated. Not every employer entitles non-standard workers according to la-bour law. But: In spite of feeling discriminated or knowing that they are being discriminated non-standard and sometimes even standard employees accept such incorrect treatment. The research question that arises here is: Why do employees not demand the compliance of la-bour law, although they had the right to. This question is crucial for understanding how la-bour law is being applied. Our empirical study shows that the non-compliance of labour law is not only subject of legal conflicts being brought to court. It is also due to employees not claiming their legitimate rights. From a juridical point of view, the law protects employees in order to let them claim their rights. However in reality, there are more aspects that have to be taken into account. In the context of a research project of the Institute for Employment Research in Germany employees were interviewed on labour law compliance and working time preferences. These qualitative interviews serve as the data base for our empirical analysis. Specifically, we fo-cus on situations in which labour law was not fully complied by the employer. As we will show, there is a difference between the fact of having the (legitimate) right and the subjec-tive feeling of power to demand. The latter is – as our results show – related to the awareness of being a high potential employee with a specific habitus. On the one hand, the self-confidence of performing well within the company encourages employees to demand the compliance of one’s rights within the labour context. On the other hand, employers want to keep their high potentials. However, employees having low self-confidence and less labour market opportunities weigh their chances before demanding the compliance with their labour rights even though they had the right to do so. Effects of gender, qualification level and im-migration status are not surprising. Following our empirical results, our argument is that the relationship between being a high potential employee and having more opportunities to demand the compliance of labour law implies a change in the understanding of labour law appliance. A law which is supposed to have a general validity turns out to be – at least in some contexts – individualized and related to the market power of employees. So the appliance of labour law is partially subject to eco-nomic rules. What can be shown is that social inequality can lead to legal inequality. In our understanding these results can evoke an interesting discussion about the interference of rights, law and economic power in highly industrialized countries.show moreshow less

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Metadaten
Author:Gabriele Fischer, Frank SowaORCiD
Document Type:conference proceeding (article)
Language:English
Date of first Publication:2015/09/10
Release Date:2025/04/16
Pagenumber:28
Konferenzangabe:17th ILERA World Congress, 7 -11 September 2015, Cape Town, South Africa
institutes:Fakultät Sozialwissenschaften
Research Themes:Soziale & ökonomische Transformation
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