6 - The personal scope of labour law

Summary

The challenge of personal scope

Labour legislation must target its application on particular kinds of work relations. It needs to distinguish, for instance, employment relations from business relations. For the former, labour law provides statutory rights for workers and employees such as a statutory minimum wage or protection from unfair dismissal. In commercial and business relations, however, such as a solicitor's provision of professional services to a client or a hairdresser's grooming for a customer, these statutory rights will not be applicable: the solicitor and the hairdresser cannot insist on being paid a minimum wage by a client nor complain of unfair dismissal if the customer chooses to go elsewhere for these services. This focus of the statutory protections on employment can be explained by its purpose. Most of this legislation aims to protect employees against the misuse of managerial power and instances of exploitation such as low pay. These problems arise typically in contracts of employment where, as we have seen, workers are vulnerable to exploitation of their weak bargaining position and harsh and unfair exercises of managerial power. Labour laws are therefore directed at contracts of employment as the paradigm that merits regulation. The problem addressed in this chapter is whether these laws should also apply to other kinds of contracts involving the performance of services when the contracts in issue closely resemble contracts of employment.