Ruth Dukes, THE LABOUR CONSTITUTION Oxford: Oxford University Press (www.oup.com), 2014. xii+244 pp. ISBN 9780199601691. £60.
| Author | |
| Published date | 01 September 2015 |
| Pages | 432-434 |
| DOI | 10.3366/elr.2015.0310 |
| Date | 01 September 2015 |
Reading this research monograph filled some gaps in my knowledge of labour law developments in the early part of the twentieth century, especially the developments occurring in Germany. It covers in detail the academic works, the political thoughts, and the political activities of two of the major writers of the first half of the century: Hugo Sinzheimer and Otto Kahn-Freund. Chapters 2 and 3 on Sinzheimer's place in, and aspirations for, the Weimar Republic as its constitution was written and as that constitution began to be lived in practice were of particular interest. In the end, it seems that it is Sinzheimer's ambitious placing of labour law within his ideal (nation state) constitution that Dukes finds attractive and would like to reclaim as a useful idea for the twenty-first century. I agree that it is a very attractive idea, however I fear it is also an idea that faces a set of practical problems when it comes to implementation that are as difficult now as they were in Sinzheimer's time. What Dukes states explicitly is not that the labour constitution is a workable plan for any current nation state, rather she says: “… the central argument of this book is that the idea of the labour constitution
Chapter 4 analyses the work of Kahn-Freund, a very significant figure in the establishment of labour law as a coherent field of study in the UK. Kahn-Freund is routinely referenced in Labour Law text books and is usually associated with the concept of collective laissez-faire. Dukes traces some changes in Kahn-Freund's thinking over his long and distinguished career. She also detects problems with the way his ideas have been developed by the prominent UK academics of the later twentieth century. In particular she argues that subsequently writers have over-emphasised the parts of Kahn-Freund's work that point to union and employer autonomy, and under-emphasise the parts that reveal the need for government involvement in “the construction and maintenance of the collectivist system” (90).
From chapter 5 onwards the book turns its attention to how the current, established, set of labour law scholars have built on Kahn-Freund's work and the direction that has meant for the entire subject. The direction to which Dukes points is the increasing emphasis on individual and collective autonomy, and on the labour market as providing spontaneous order or...
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