Reinventing Labour Law

This monograph investigates current issues in labour law enforcement from a socio-legal perspective. It analyses how local Italian enforcement actors promote the protection of workers in Prato – a city that in recent decades has seen a significant influx of Chinese migrants who run small workshops as part of the local clothing industry. Many of the Chinese firms in Prato fail to live up to core labour standards, such as maximum working hours, health and safety at work and payment of social security contributions. The book analyses the strategies and practices employed by three local enforcement actors (labour inspectors, labour unionists and a new type of labour law consultant) in their efforts to assist Chinese firms in improving their level of labour law compliance. Combining documentary, interview and observational data, the book applies theories of legal culture and legal development to address the interaction between law and society. It focuses on the operational aspects of law by asking three interrelated research questions: How do local enforcement actors promote the protection of workers in Chinese firms in Prato? Which tools are employed, and which rationalities drive the initiatives? The book thereby sheds light upon processes of legal cultural adaptation, informing ongoing international and national debates about what can actually be done to combat contemporary gaps in the protection of workers.

There is growing interest in trying to understand and rethink the goals of labour law in light of changing realities in the labour market and regulation. Responding to such fundamental questions as: What is labour law for? How can it be justified? And on what should reforms be based? this book challenges the way we think about labour law.

Labour law is in crisis. Global economic factors and the changing contours of work and workplace relations have led to a reorientation of the social, economic, political and cultural environment within which labour law has developed. This is not a jurisdictional problem but rather is deeply entrenched in transnational development. Solutions must recognise and mobilise the transformational shift that has taken place over recent decades. Law should be viewed as a force for and a facilitator of change, capable of expressing and determining social relations. The essays in this book explore the challenges posed by labour law's potential reinvention as a discipline fit for accommodating and investigating such change within a range of different but connected jurisdictional and regulatory concepts and paradigms.

Based on author's thesis (doctoral - Rosklide Universitet, 2016) under title: Reinventing tools for law enforcement: a socio-legal investigation of the promotion of workers' protection among Chinese firms in Prato, Italy.

The editors’ substantive introduction and the specially commissioned chapters in the Handbook explore the emergence of transnational labour law as a field, along with its contested contours. The expansion of traditional legal methods, such as treaties, is juxtaposed with the proliferation of contemporary alternatives such as indicators, framework agreements and consumer-led initiatives. Key international and regional institutions are studied for their coverage of such classic topics as freedom of association, equality, and sectoral labour standard-setting, as well as for the space they provide for dialogue. The volume underscores transnational labour law’s capacity to build bridges, including on migration, climate change and development.