THE CONTRACT OF EMPLOYMENT IN POLISH LABOUR LAW

Published date01 January 1962
Date01 January 1962
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1962.tb00677.x
THE CONTRACT
OF
EMPLOYMENT
IN
POLISH
LABOUR
LAW
EVERYONE
familiar with the problems of labour law is aware
of
the
part played by the contract of employment in the body of its rules.
The spread
of
contractual labour relations, and the social need to
regulate their content and to impose some limits
on
the original
freedom
of
contract
in
this field, may
be
said
to
have marked the
first steps towards the creation of modern labour law as distinct
from civil law.
Later it developed and increased in significance along with the
growing employment
of
hired labour in industry, and gradually
came to be acknowledged as a separate branch of law with its
own
particular subject and certain methods of regulation peculiar to
itself. In Poland, labour law is now looked
on
as one of the main
branches of the law, and is taught as a compulsory subject in
University Law Departments.
The body of legal rules forming the system of labour law in
modern countries is usually distinguished for great quantity and
variety. Some
of
them concern labour protection, including safety
regulations and industrial hygiene (the Factory
Acts,
in this
country); some regulate the status of trade unions and the struc-
ture
d
collective labour relations; some apply to wage regulation.
The rules governing the employment contract, its formation, its
duration and termination, as well as the mutual obligations
of
the
contracting parties (the
law of master and servant,” as it is often
called here) are, however, the core of every system of labour law.
The content of these rules-the emphasis on the various rights
and obligations of the parties and the scope of the limitations
imposed by legislation and by collective regulations-is unquestion-
ably the most characteristic feature
of
the whole labour law of any
given country. In speaking
d
the contract of employment, there-
fore, we cannot but form a general idea as to what the total
labour-law system it is a part of, is like, what its fundamental
premises and principal ideas are, and what social
aims
it
envisages.
Bearing these general propositions in mind, let us now turn to
the problems of the contract
of
employment in Poland. What part
does it play in the Polish labour relations system
?
To
what extent
is the content of the contract
of
employment regulated by
legislation
?
What are the rules governing its formation and
termination? And to what specific rights and obligations does it
give rise
?
These are the principal questions
I
should like to discuss
briefly, in general terms, without going into any detailed description
of the legal rules now in force.
86

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