Renorming Labour Law: Can We Escape Labour Law's Recurring Regulatory Dilemmas?

Industrial Law Journal, Vol. 39, No. 2, pp. 99-138, 2010

40 Pages Posted: 23 Mar 2010 Last revised: 13 May 2013

See all articles by Eric Tucker

Eric Tucker

York University - Osgoode Hall Law School; Cleveland State University - Cleveland State University College of Law

Date Written: December 16, 2009

Abstract

Historically, protective labour law pushed back against capitalist labour markets by facilitating workers’ collective action and setting minimum employment standards based on social norms. Although the possibilities, limits and desirability of such a project were viewed differently in classical, Marxist and pluralist political economy, each perspective understood that the pursuit of protective labour law would produce recurring regulatory dilemmas requiring trade-offs between efficiency, equity and voice and/or between workers’ and employers’ interests. Recently, some scholars have argued that labour law needs to be renormed in ways that are market constituting rather than market constraining, and that this change would avoid regulatory dilemmas. This article reviews the concept of regulatory dilemmas as formulated in the three major traditions of labour law scholarship, critically assesses recent work by Deakin and Wilkinson and by Hyde that proposes to renorm labour law and overcome regulatory dilemmas, and proposes an alternative approach to understanding regulatory dilemmas based on the work of Wright.

Keywords: Labour Law, Theory, Regulatory Dilemmas

Suggested Citation

Tucker, Eric, Renorming Labour Law: Can We Escape Labour Law's Recurring Regulatory Dilemmas? (December 16, 2009). Industrial Law Journal, Vol. 39, No. 2, pp. 99-138, 2010, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1572900

Eric Tucker (Contact Author)

York University - Osgoode Hall Law School ( email )

4700 Keele Street
Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3
Canada

HOME PAGE: http://https://works.bepress.com/ericm_tucker/

Cleveland State University - Cleveland State University College of Law ( email )

2121 Euclid Avenue, LB 138
Cleveland, OH 44115-2214
United States

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