The System Of Actors In Labor Law

The actors of labor law include employees and trade unions, employers and their associations, government and public labor market services providers. All the above actors compose the system of labor actors with special structure and function, in which each actor has certain functions and uses and they connect with and affect each other.The basic frame of the system is the triangular framework composed by labors, employers and the government. In this framework, labors and employers as the parties of labor relationship negotiate their rights and interests and the government as the representative of social and public interests and the stakeholder of labor relations influence, balance and intermediate the bargains of labors and employers to maintain the social stabilization. The practice basis of this framework is tripartite principle and the theoretical basis is the theory of interest group. Tripartite principle refers to the mechanism that all issues involving labor relationships should be solved by the organization or consulting institutions composed by the three parties to realize the dynamic balance of the interests of labor, employer and the public which is represented by the government. The interests between labor and employer are both conflicting and consistent and labor relationship is of external effects. Labor group and employer group are both exclusive and inclusive groups and their relations are relations between big groups and small groups, vulnerable groups and strong groups. The government as the outsider of labor relationship is both representative and protector of social interests and the intermediator between labor and employer groups and is also influenced by them. In one hand, government intervenes and coordinates the operation of collective agreement and employment contract; on the other hand, the labor and employer groups influence labor legislation and policies through institutionalized or non- institutionalized, direct or indirect canvass and impressing. However, the defects of triangular framework is individual parties of labor relationship is covered by groups interests. To discover the relation between individual interests and groups interests should resort to three-layer framework.Three-layer framework refers to the actors of labor law present the"government—social actors—parties of labor market"three-layer framework on the perspective of"political state—civil society—free market"state—society structure. Social actors here include the unions, employers'associations and public labor marker service providers, while the parties of labor market include individual employers and employees. Three-layer framework shows the following characteristics: (1)there are some specialties compared with other free market governed by private law, so it needs external intervention and coordination; (2)two ways of the external intervention and coordination: one is labor autonomy from the social labor associations and the other is government intervention from the state. (3) Organizing and development of public labor service provider reflects the relationship both between the labor associations and between the government and labor associations.(4)the two major theories on the relationship between government and social actors are liberalism and corporatism.The above three layer actors influence each other directly and indirectly and organically combine market mechanism, government intervention and social autonomy in the field of labor law regulation in following aspects: (1)the government and social actor mutually mend and restrict;(2)social actor service the labor marker parties and the labor marker parties influence the way and scope of service providing;(3) unions and employers'association regulate their members activities and reflect and protect their members rights and interests at the same time; (4) labor marker parties directly and indirectly influence labor legislation and labor policies, while the government directly or indirectly intervenes the labor relationship between employers and employees.Therefore, the operation of triangular framework is respectively on state, social and marker three layers and is conditioned by the three-layer framework as follows: (1)thee relationship between government and social actors decides the divide of function between collective regulation and government intervention;(2) the relationship between government and unions and employers association decides the true frame of triangular framework and neutrality of government;(3) the cover of union decides the operation effects, function space of collective bargaining and necessity and way of government intervention;(4)the power between labor market parties decides the operation of individual labor relationship and the scope of government intervention;(5) the development of social organizations decides the choice between labor autonomy and government intervention, the way of public labor service providing and regulation system of individual labor relationship.On the basis of above elements, the choice of labor law system are conditioned in the following way: (1)the system of actors influences the orientation of labor legislation; (2) the system of actors influences the legal system of coordinating labor relationship;(3) the system of actors influences the ways and degrees of labor law in protecting employees. All the above is proved by the industrialized state practice and the strict regulation choice of labor dispatch in China Labor Contract Law.In China the system of actors in labor law presents the basic structure of strong capital, vulnerable labor and weak social actors. At present, the state corporatism should be a practical choice by strengthening independency of labor union and employers'association with the aim of construct a social corporatism model of the system of actors in labor law.