Labour Law as Social Questioning: The Contribution of the 'Labour Conventions Approach' to a Different History of Socio-Economic Institutions
Economic Sociology, 2012
Posted: 2 Nov 2012
Date Written: November 1, 2012
Abstract
Starting from the product as a manifestation of a “world of production,” the “labour conventions approach” leads to analysing the legal institutions as references from which the actors question the nature of the interactions that they themselves establish in the course of their productive activities. Conversely, the difficulties identified through raising questions on the basis of this legal framework in turn further an analysis concerning its relevance, occasionally leading to its reorganization. This therefore opens the way for a different social history, in which the actors’ initiatives contribute to the transformation of their worlds of production and to the evolution of the institutional framework within which they grasp its characteristics. The company and the employee are no longer timeless categories in the history of capitalism, but become the objects of an approach linking economic and institutional history.
Keywords: employment contract, convention, economic history, labour history
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