Individual and Collective Regulation of Labour Relations

Proposals for the reform of labour legislation have been central to the reform agenda of international financial institutions, most particularly the World Bank, and have been pressed particularly on the governments of countries which formerly have had socialist or social democratic forms of labour market regulation. This reform agenda is based on a neo-liberal conception of the labour market, according to which labour power is a commodity like any other and the labour contract no different from any other contract to buy and sell a commodity. On this basis the neo-liberal dogma asserts that the optimal regulation of labour relations is that based on free contractual relations between individuals, free of governmental or other collective restraints. Any interference with the freedom of contract in the labour market, as in any other market, restricts the opportunities for individuals to choose the most favourable opportunities available to them. For example, government or trade union regulation of wages prevents those who are willing to work for less than the stipulated wage to obtain employment. Regulation therefore maintains an „artificially‟ high level of wages for those in employment at the expense of those not lucky enough to have jobs. The removal of regulation will allow wages to reach their market level (fall to their market level), when supply and demand are in balance and everyone who wants to work has a job. Trade unions are not unwelcome, to the extent that they can improve the flows of labour market information, but they should not have any coercive powers or rights to impose collective constraints that impede the freedom of contract.