Labor law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 8750 words

Labor law - Essay Example However, the comparing will be in specific aspects, labor law background in both countries, minimum wage, woman working, and child working. Chapter I Background: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Unite Sate of America, which are the subject of comparison in this research, had, in various aspects of life such as politics, economy and law. Of course, there is different background in labor law in both countries.In this chapter we will refer to the historical stages of labor law in every state. (2) United States labor lawbackground: Employer took their labor trouble to court almost as soon as American became independent. Each state has its own court, and they often have disagreed with one another about labor cases.(3) Because the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects the freedom of association, the court did not outlaw unions as such. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, a common union tactic was for union members to agree among themselves how much in wage they would accept from their employers; the members also refused to work in the same shop as any other worker who accepted less than union scale. However, the courts held that this tactic was a criminal conspiracy,(4) (will be case as example under minimum wage section below). By the end of the nineteenth century, prosecutions for criminal conspiracy had become ineffective in controlling labor unions. There were two reasons for this change. First, a criminal case was too slow. The work could not be punished until after an indictment was issued and the case had gone to trial. This process took several months, during which the strike or boycott was damaging the employer’s business. Second, jurieswrer increasingly made up of workers, not merely shopkeepers and landowners; andworkers were hesitant to find coworkers guilty of the crime peacefully trying to improve their wage and working condition. Employers, therefore, took their complaints to civil court, and here they found the perfect we apon for fighting unions: the injunction. In the past, the law permitted judges to issue injunctions against unions freely.(5) In 1890, Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act in order to control monopolies in business, but the wording of the law was so general that it could applied to labor unions as well. The statute outlawed â€Å" every . . . combination . . . or conspiracy in restraint of trade or commerce among the several states,† Al thought this act was not used against strikes over wages ad hours, it was used to control union organizing. (6) In the infamous DanburyHatters case, the union sought to organize all the fur hat makers of America by boycotting the products of nonunion manufactures. One manufactures sued, arguing that the boycott did diminish trade among the states and awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars of damages payable by the individual workers.(7) Twenty-five years later, in 1914, Congress passed the Clayton Act which stated, â€Å" the labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce† and â€Å" no . . . injunction shall be granted in any case between an employer and employees . . . growing out of a dispute concerning terms or conditions of employment,† Union leaders regarded the Clayton act as a great victory for organized labor. But court turned the victory into defeat by holding congress did not mean to permit boycotts in support of organizing campaigns.