European Labour Law and Severance Pay Determination in Collective Redundancies

In this article, we analyse the effects of institutional procedures for redundancies on the earning losses of redundant workers in Europe. Our approach consists of modelling an ideal case embedding the main characteristics of European Labour Law, in particular, the bargaining between firms and workers on the severance pay after a negative shock. The most striking result is that an exact compensation of the earning losses is only obtained by chance. In particular, we show (including a numerical example) that overcompensation of dismissed workers is a real possibility. On the contrary, the ex-ante bargaining models of severance pay predict a full-insurance result. Therefore, we propose a policy recommendation which consists of changing the ex-post bargaining of severance pay in collective dismissals for an ex-ante bargaining.     

Deregulation of dismissal law and unjust dismissal in Korea

Using data of Korean court cases, related to the unjust dismissal claims between 1987 and 2000, this paper examines how the deregulation of Korean dismissal law in 1998 affects the incidence of unjust dismissals. Logit estimation to identify the determinants of unjust dismissal rate in Korea shows that deregulation of the dismissal law led to a higher incidence of unjust dismissals. Reasons for this empirical result were explored. These included misinterpretations of the law on the part of employers, due to the disorderly process of legislation and poor coordination in industrial relations, changes in court's adjudication criteria influenced by socio-economic factors, and finally misalignment of law and economic conditions.     

Part One of the Employment Act 2008: 'Better' Dispute Resolution?

This article will analyse Part One of the Employment Act 2008on employment dispute resolution and in particular the repealof the statutory workplace dispute resolution procedures onlyfour years after Regulations implemented them. It will beginby considering the background of increasing tribunal caseloadthat led to their introduction in the first place. Later sectionswill examine the replacement of these statutory procedures withwhat Ministers described as the triple package of a new AdvisoryConciliation and Arbitration Service (‘ACAS’) helpline,increased ACAS conciliation and a revised ACAS Code. The languageof repeal and the Act's reintroduction of the Polkey line ofcases might suggest that dismissal law is merely reverting backto its pre October 2004 position. This article will, however,conclude that Part One does not just ‘simplify’dismissal law, or ‘return’ the law to September2004 or indeed to any other time frame. Instead, it weakenskey procedural protections for employees potentially by conflatingthe 2002 Act's different tests of ‘automatically’unfair and ‘ordinarily’ unfair dismissals, for example.Lowering standards of procedural justice is significant in itselfbut this takes added importance for dismissed employees as tribunalsrarely investigate the substantive fairness of dismissals.     

THE RIGHT TO EMPLOYMENT SECURITY IN CHINESE LABOR LAW：LATEST DEVELOPMENTS IN LIGHT OF INTERNATIONAL LAW

Employment security is very often examined from a labor law rather than a human rights perspective. This article looks at the employment security in Chinese labor law from a human rights perspective. The right to employment security includes both negative and positive aspects: a negative right to protection against unfair dismissal, including dismissal for cause and economic redundancy, and a positive right to employment stability. Comparing Chinese labor law with international standards, this article focuses on analyzing important changes in the legislative developments in China in the past years, such as severance pay, labor contract with indefinite duration, and labor dispatching. This article also points out the main deficiencies, such as dismissal on the ground of criminal liabilities, weakness of trade unions and law enforcement, and no exemption of small employers. The article concludes with observing a tendency of Chinese law getting closer to international standards and pointing out the approach China should follow: to enhance employability through vocational training and providing better social security when strengthening the legislative protection of employment security.     

雇主不当解雇雇员的赔偿责任

根据国际劳工组织相关公约和许多国家的立法，雇主解雇雇员必须具备正当事由并遵守正当程序，雇主缺乏正当事由或违反正当程序将承担不当解雇的责任。雇主不当解雇雇员责任的确定需考虑雇员的工资收入、工龄、剩余工作年限、找到类似工作的可能性、寻找其他工作的费用等复杂因素。目前我国《劳动合同法》的相关规则过于简陋，应该借鉴国外的经验，建立既具有可操作性又能反映雇员实际损失的赔偿规则。     

Redfearn v UK: Political Association and Dismissal

In Redfearn v UK the European Court of Human Rights examined the question whether dismissal for membership of a political party is compatible with freedom of association under Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Court endorsed a strong commitment to multi‐party democracy and protection of employees against the domination of the employers. This note discusses the judgment and its implications for UK law, looking at three key issues: first, whether the law of unfair dismissal provides effective protection against action that poses a threat to the enjoyment of Convention rights; second, the grounds under which an employer may justify the lawfulness of a dismissal that interferes with a Convention right; third, the available remedies against the employer when there is a breach of a Convention right.     

Employment effect of dismissal pay in the presence of judicial mistakes

Existing studies either overlook the importance of the juridical enforcement of employment protection legislation in determining the labor market consequences of dismissal payments or else neglect the possibly judicial biases caused by a tight labor market due to the assumption of exogenous judicial errors. By calling for endogenously determined judicial errors, this paper not only traces the effect of a firing litigation on employment, but also explores the possible effects of labor market conditions on judicial mistakes. We show that worse labor market conditions (a larger dismissal pay) will induce judges to be more favorable toward fired workers (firms). Thus, a higher level of unemployment (a larger dismissal pay) will decrease (increase) the possibility of a type-1 error and increase (decrease) the possibility of a type-2 error. It is also shown that, while a policy that lowers a type-1 error will increase the employment level, a lower type-2 error, somewhat surprisingly, will not necessarily have a positive effect on employment. Besides, in departing from the findings of previous analyses, we find that dismissal pay can either increase or decrease the employment level, with this crucially depending on the probability of juridical mistakes.     

个人解雇保护立法实践的国际比较：回应与建设

在个人解雇保护制度的基本要素中,我国在解雇理由、解雇费、不公平解雇赔偿金、不公平解雇主张的时效和复职程度等五个方面的立法规制强度高于国际平均水平;在解雇通知期、解雇程序、通知期开始前的延迟时间三个方面的立法规制强度低于国际平均水平。但综合来看,我国解雇理由虚严实宽,在解雇灵活性和解雇成本方面呈现出复杂扭曲的特点,尤其是定期劳动合同的解雇保护制度大幅降低了我国解雇保护的水平。借鉴国际立法例,根据我国的国情,可以在劳资双方都可接受的限度内,循降低解雇行为灵活性、改变解雇经济成本结构的思路提高解雇保护严格度,并做若干具体制度之改进。     

Edwards v Chesterfield Royal Hospital – Parliamentary Intention and Damages Caused by Maladministration of a Contractual Dismissal Procedure

In Edwards v Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust [2011] UKSC 58 [2012] 2 W.L.R. 55 the Supreme Court addressed the following question: is an employee, who can establish that (a) if a contractual disciplinary process had been correctly administered he would have been exonerated, and (b) thereafter employed until retirement, able to sue for loss of the earnings that he would have acquired until retirement? Three members of the Supreme Court held that such a remedy was not reconcilable with the enactment, originally in the Industrial Relations Act 1971, of a statutory unfair dismissals protection regime. It was Parliament's intention that an employee should not be able to outmanoeuvre the statute's compensation limitation rules by deploying a superior common law remedy. This note considers that reading of Parliament's intention.     

从就业保障权看我国劳动法

就业保障权是我国宪法保护的工作权的衍生权利。国际法对此权利的丰富内涵已有明确的标准。以这些国际标准为基准,分析我国现行劳动法对就业保障权的保护程度,并分别从反对任意解雇,限制固定期限合同,提高就业能力三方面对劳动法条文及其实践进行了考察。     

Workplace Monitoring and the Right to Private Life at Work

In Barbulescu v Romania, the European Court of Human Rights clarified the application of the Article 8 right to private life in the workplace, and the extent of the state's positive obligations to protect the right against workplace monitoring. The decision establishes that there is an irreducible core to the right to private life at work that does not depend on an employee's reasonable expectations of privacy, and sets out clear principles for striking a fair balance between Article 8 and the employer's interests in the context of workplace monitoring. This article considers the nature of states’ positive obligation to protect human rights at work, the scope of the right to private life, and the impact of the decision on domestic law of unfair dismissal.     

违法解雇期间工资支付法律问题探讨——基于我国台湾地区劳动立法与学说的考察

摘基于劳动关系的特殊性，我国台湾地区“民法”规定雇主违法解雇劳工受领迟延期间应当继续支付工资。雇主支付工资时有权扣除劳工因不服劳务所直接减省的费用，但不得扣除劳工转向他处服劳务所取得的工资或故意怠于取得的利益。劳工要求雇主支付被违法解雇期间的工资应当具备法定条件，并应当就雇主受领劳务迟延及工资报酬之计算等权利发生要件负举证责任。     

劳动合同法中经济补偿金的定性及其制度构建

作为劳动合同法中的一项重要制度,经济补偿金在性质上应当是用人单位对员工被动解除劳动关系进行帮助的义务化或法定化。在经济补偿金性质的立法讨论中,用人单位帮助义务说最集中地体现了社会法的立法思路。劳动者层次的差异性反映出了劳动者由"抽象人"向"具体人"的转变过程,应该是经济补偿金制度重构的理论基础。     

美国劳动法上雇用自由原则的公共政策例外:形成、实践与反思

公共政策例外是美国各州法院司法实务中形成的普通法例外,它构成了对美国传统劳动法上雇用自由原则的限制。该例外的适用,为那些因拒绝从事违反公共政策行为而遭解雇的员工提供了侵权法上的诉因。由于法院在适用该例外时对公共政策的涵义和法源存在不同认识,因而导致司法判决的不统一,对全面保护劳动者权益造成不利影响。为了改变这种状况,应当通过对法律的明文规定探求公共政策的法源,并在此基础上扩大公共政策例外在不当解雇案件中的适用。     

Opportunistic termination of employment contracts and legal protection against dismissal in Germany and the USA

When analysing labour law most lawyers tend to focus on the protection of existing employment relations and neglect the feedback on ex ante incentives, whereas most economists focus on the incentives to create new jobs without knowing the regulations and relevant court decisions in detail. This paper starts with a simple model that discusses some potential ex post and ex ante effects of protection against dismissal and reconsiders the question of rigidity and flexibility with respect to German and US labour law. Special attention is paid to investments in specific human capital. It is shown that the legal protection against dismissal in Germany is in general characterised by relatively high expected dismissal costs with a low variance, although some court decisions have increased uncertainty for the parties to the employment contract. In the USA legal protection against dismissal is in general characterised by relatively low expected dismissal costs with a high variance, i.e. a high degree of uncertainty. This corresponds to the typical differences in employment relations between Germany and the USA with respect to external mobility, internal flexibility, capital intensity, labour productivity and long-term unemployment.     

Divisions of labour: maternity protection in Europe

Incapacity for work on the grounds of pregnancy and birth-related illness has long proved problematic for the courts, resulting, on occasion, in lawful dismissal based on a comparison between the woman concerned and a sick male worker. The European Court of Justice has recently clarified the duration of the 'protected period'that lasts throughout pregnancy and the period of maternity leave, during which dismissal will be prohibited. However, the duration of leave provided by Member States differs, resulting in a wide degree of variation for such protection. Furthermore, where illness arises or persists following childbirth, women will continue to be vulnerable to dismissal. This article considers the impact of caselaw developments and examines the provision of maternity leave in Europe, which, contrary to the harmonization originally envisaged by the introduction of the Pregnant Workers Directive (92/85/EEC), appears to be subject to a high degree of variation.     

All Bark and No Bite: Notes on the Federal Constitutional Court's 'Banana Decision'

The Federal Constitutional Court's banana decision of 7 June 2000 continues the complex theme of national fundamental‐rights control over Community law. Whereas in the ‘Solange II’ decision (BVerfGE 73, 339) the Federal Constitutional Court had lowered its standard of review to the general guarantee of the constitutionally mandatorily required minimum, the Maastricht judgment (BVerfGE 89, 155) had raised doubts as to the continued validity of this case law. In the banana decision, which was based on the submission of the EC banana market regulation by the Frankfurt‐am‐Main administrative court for constitutional review, the Federal Constitutional Court has now confirmed the ‘Solange II’decision and restrictively specified the admissibility conditions for constitutional review of Community law as follows. Constitutional complaints and judicial applications for review of European legislation alleging fundamental‐rights infringements are inadmissible unless they show that the development of European law including Court of Justice case law has since the ‘Solange II’ decision generally fallen below the mandatorily required fundamental‐rights standard of the Basic Law in a given field. This would require a comprehensive comparison of European and national fundamental‐rights protection. This paper criticises this formula as being logically problematic and scarcely compatible with the Basic Law. Starting from the position that national constitutional courts active even in European matters should be among the essential vertical ‘checks and balances’ in the European multi‐level system, a practical alternative to the Federal Constitutional Court's retreat is developed. This involves at the first stage a submission by the Federal Constitutional Court to the Court of Justice, something that in the banana case might have taken up questions on the method of fundamental‐rights review and the internal Community effect of WTO dispute settlement decisions. Should national constitutional identity not be upheld even by this, then at a second stage, as ultima ratio taking recourse to general international law, the call is made for the decision of constitutional conflicts by an independent mediating body.     

The incentive effects of settlements under joint and several liability

Several recent articles have examined the effects of joint and several liability on settlement. But these settlement effects also have a significant impact on primary behavior. This paper will examine these effects under the most frequently analyzed paradigm of joint and several liability, in which plaintiff's probabilities of success against the defendants are perfectly correlated and any settlements are applied to future awards under a pro tanto set-off rule (i.e., the award is reduced by the amount of the settlement).Section I will present the basic model of settlement under joint and several liability. Section II will draw the implications of settlement on primary behavior. As others have noted, the settlement effects of joint and several liability increase the expected recovery to the plaintiff and the expected damages payable by defendants. However, this does not mean that they increase defendants' incentives to take care ex ante. Rather, as I will show, the settlement effects of joint and several liability can either increase or decrease incentives to exercise care, depending on the nature of the uncertainty regarding defendant's liability and on the level of care that would prevail otherwise.     

Dismissal policies in the united states and europe: Employment at will versus just cause

This article presents employment termination as a question of social justice. Two main competing models for legal rules governing the dismissal of individual employees are detailed: The U.S. modified Employment at Will approach and the common European Just Cause approach. A method of moral analysis is proposed for assessing the conflicting arguments behind each model. A series of questions are identified that can serve as a research program for arriving at a normative judgment concerning the relative moral merits of the competing models.     

Severance payments for dismissed employees in Germany

This contribution investigates severance payments for dismissed employees in Germany. Particularly, it responds to two questions: “Who receives severance payments?” and “By which characteristics is the level of severance payments determined?”. Individual and collective dismissals are analyzed separately. This is the first study on this issue using individual representative data—the German Socio-Economic Panel—and multivariate methods. The results indicate that rather women, persons with many years of tenure and working in large firms receive severance payments. There is a huge variance in the size of the payments. The most important determinants are the previous wage, tenure and age.