The purpose of this research is to explore the need for, and the legal implications of, harmonising labour laws in the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Chapter One highlights a number of factors that call for the harmonisation of labour laws in the SADC region and discusses some of the reasons why labour laws are not well developed in the region. The influence of globalisation on labour standards in southern Africa and the influence of regionalism on the harmonisation of labour laws are discussed at length. The inference that could be drawn from this discussion is that for a regionalisation process in southern Africa to be successful, there is an urgent need to harmonise the region’s labour law system. This thesis confirms that Southern Africa has many lessons to learn from the regional harmonisation of labour law in the European Economic Community and the current European Union. The implementation of international labour standards in southern Africa is investigated. The main areas examined include (1) freedom of association, (2) collective bargaining, (3) forced labour and (4) discrimination. The findings of this investigation show that there is no uniformity in the implementation of International Labour Organisation (ILO) standards in the SADC region and, therefore, it is recommended labour law should be harmonised in terms of ILO standards. In respect of the benefits to be derived from the harmonisation process, an empirical investigation was conducted in the SADC region and the following is recommended: the harmonisation of labour law in the SADC region will help with the implementation of ILO standards, protection of workers against the economic power of employers in the workplace and maintaining similar benefits for migrants in the region. / Mercantile law / LL.D.

The purpose of this research is to explore the need for, and the legal implications of, harmonising labour laws in the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Chapter One highlights a number of factors that call for the harmonisation of labour laws in the SADC region and discusses some of the reasons why labour laws are not well developed in the region. The influence of globalisation on labour standards in southern Africa and the influence of regionalism on the harmonisation of labour laws are discussed at length. The inference that could be drawn from this discussion is that for a regionalisation process in southern Africa to be successful, there is an urgent need to harmonise the region’s labour law system. This thesis confirms that Southern Africa has many lessons to learn from the regional harmonisation of labour law in the European Economic Community and the current European Union. The implementation of international labour standards in southern Africa is investigated. The main areas examined include (1) freedom of association, (2) collective bargaining, (3) forced labour and (4) discrimination. The findings of this investigation show that there is no uniformity in the implementation of International Labour Organisation (ILO) standards in the SADC region and, therefore, it is recommended labour law should be harmonised in terms of ILO standards. In respect of the benefits to be derived from the harmonisation process, an empirical investigation was conducted in the SADC region and the following is recommended: the harmonisation of labour law in the SADC region will help with the implementation of ILO standards, protection of workers against the economic power of employers in the workplace and maintaining similar benefits for migrants in the region. / Mercantile law / LL. D.

Avec la globalisation de l’économie, l’entreprise traditionnelle est devenue un réseau global de producteurs liés par des contrats. À la suite de certains abus commis par les entreprises multinationales, notamment en ce qui concerne les droits fondamentaux des travailleurs, les entreprises et la société civile ont développé des mécanismes de régulation privés dont les codes de conduite privés. La présente étude cherche à déterminer quels pouvaient être les véritables destinataires des codes de conduite : les travailleurs du pays d’origine de l’entreprise (généralement situés dans un pays développé) ou les travailleurs des pays de production (généralement situés dans des pays en développement). À cette fin, le mémoire compare le contenu des codes de conduite de Nike, de Gap et de Levi-Strauss sur ce sujet avec les observations de l’Organisation internationale du travail pour les travailleurs des États-Unis, de l’Inde et du Bangladesh. Certains écarts entre les protections accordées par les codes et les besoins des travailleurs sont ainsi identifiés. Dans la dernière partie du mémoire, la question d’étude est élargie afin d’examiner si les codes ne seraient pas destinés à des personnes autres que les travailleurs, soient les consommateurs, les actionnaires ou l’entreprise elle-même. / The globalised economy has transformed the traditional corporation into a worldwide network of producers connected by contracts. In light of certain abuses committed by multinational corporations, corporations and civil society have developed regulatory mechanisms including private codes of conduct. The purpose of this study is to determine for which workers the codes of conduct were developed: the workers of the country of origin of the corporation (generally located in developed countries) or the workers of the countries of production (generally located in developing countries). By comparing the content of the codes of conduct of Nike, Gap and Levi-Strauss regarding freedom of association with the observations of the International Labour Organisation for the United-States, India and Bangladesh, we identified a certain number of gaps between the content of the codes and the needs of the workers. In the last part of the study, we widened our research question to determine whether or not the codes might be destined to people other than the workers, namely consumers, shareholders or the corporation itself.

Dans un important arrêt rendu en 2007 dans l’affaire Health Services and Support, la Cour suprême du Canada a reconnu pour la première fois que la liberté d’association énoncée à la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés protégeait la «capacité des syndiqués d’engager des négociations collectives sur des problèmes reliés au milieu de travail». Pour conclure ainsi, la Cour trouve appui dans le droit international du travail. Avec cette décision, la Cour renverse sa position établie une vingtaine d’années plus tôt voulant que la négociation collective ne soit pas une activité bénéficiant d’une protection à titre de droit fondamental. Suite à ce changement de paradigme, nombre d’auteurs ont été d’avis que la constitutionnalisation du droit de négociation collective pourrait avoir des effets sur la validité de différentes mesures législatives et sur l’interprétation des lois encadrant les régimes de relations de travail. De plus, la négociation collective étant historiquement indissociable de la grève, il y avait tout lieu de croire que la protection de la Charte pourrait être étendue au droit de grève. Par la suite, en 2011, la Cour suprême a rendu la décision Fraser portant sur l’accès à un régime de représentation collective, précisant la portée du droit de négociation collective tel qu’envisagé dans Health Services. Le présent mémoire recense la jurisprudence qui a abordé la protection constitutionnelle de la négociation collective en droit public canadien et en droit privé québécois depuis l’arrêt Health Services afin d’identifier ses effets sur la validité des restrictions au droit de grève, sur la validité des restrictions au contenu des négociations et sur l’imposition de conditions de travail, sur la validité des exclusions de certaines catégories de travailleurs des régimes de représentation collective, et sur l’interprétation des dispositions de ces régimes. Les résultats de la recherche nous permettent de conclure que la constitutionnalisation du droit de négociation collective a engendré un certain volume de contestations de la part d’organisations syndicales. Ces procédures ont porté fruit dans des situations où l’atteinte aux droits était similaire aux précédents de la Cour suprême ainsi que dans un cas lié au droit de grève. Les effets plus vastes envisagés dans la recension de la littérature ne se sont pas matérialisés. Par ailleurs, nos résultats en droit privé indiquent que la constitutionnalisation du droit de grève n’a pas eu d’impact sur l’interprétation des régimes de relations industrielles. Enfin, le recours ou non au droit international par les tribunaux n’a pas d’effet sur nos résultats. / In 2007, the Supreme Court of Canada issued an important decision in the case Health Services and Support, as it recognised for the first time that the guarantee of freedom of association under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects the capacity of members of labour unions to engage in collective bargaining on workplace issues. The Court finds support in international labour law in order to come to this conclusion. With this decision, the Supreme Court overturns its position established some twenty years before that collective bargaining does not benefit from the protection of the Charter as a fundamental right. This paradigm change led many authors to comment that the shift would probably lead to the constitutional invalidity of a number of legislative measures and would affect the interpretation of labour law regimes. Furthermore, collective bargaining being historically interrelated with strikes, it would be logical that Charter protection be extended to the right to strike. Later on, in 2011, the Supreme Court issued a decision in the Fraser case on the right to access a labour relations regime, shedding light on the ambit of the constitutional guarantee. This research surveys case law that dealt with the constitutional protection of collective bargaining after Health Services in order to assess its influence on the validity of restrictions on the right to strike, on the validity of restrictions on bargaining and the imposition of working conditions, on the validity of exclusions of certain categories of workers from labour relations legal regimes and on their interpretation. Our results show that the constitutionalization of the right to bargain collectively has led to a certain volume of legal challenges by labour unions, which were successful in instances where the infringement on bargaining rights were similar to the Supreme Court precedents as well as one case related to the right to strike. The larger influence as foreseen in our literature review did not materialize. The constitutionalization of collective bargaining has had no effect on the interpretation of labour law regimes in private law. Finally, the use of international labour law has no measurable effect on our results.

La tesi studia l’impatto degli standard internazionali sulla libertà di associazione sindacale negli ordinamenti nazionali e a livello europeo, al fine di verificare se essi favoriscano un innalzamento del livello di tutela dei diritti sociali collettivi. La ricerca parte dallo studio delle fonti Oil sulla libertà di associazione, considerata diritto fondamentale da promuovere universalmente, e dalla qualificazione dello sciopero come suo “corollario intrinseco” operata dagli organi di controllo dell’organizzazione. Si sofferma poi sull’utilizzo degli international labour standards da parte dei giudici di diversi ordinamenti e sul fenomeno della cooperazione tra autorità giurisdizionali e organismi non giudiziari specializzati. In particolare, la ricerca prende in esame alcune pronunce della Corte europea per i diritti dell’uomo, come Demir e Enerji Yapi, in cui gli strumenti Oil, insieme alla Carta sociale europea e alle decisioni del Comitato per i diritti sociali, sono stati impiegati per ampliare il contenuto dell’art.11 Cedu, includendovi il diritto di contrattazione e azione collettiva. Alla luce delle modifiche introdotte dal Trattato di Lisbona, successive alle sentenze Viking e Laval, si considera se e in che modo gli standard Oil e la giurisprudenza di Strasburgo possano avere un impatto positivo sull’Ue, stimolando un bilanciamento più equilibrato tra diritti sociali e libertà economiche. / The thesis analyses the impact of international labour standards about freedom of association on national legal systems and on the European level, to verify if they can reinforce the protection of collective social rights. The research starts from a survey of ILO sources on freedom of association, considered as a fundamental right to be promoted universally, and from the definition, provided by the supervisory bodies, conceiving strike as an “intrinsic corollary” of the right to organize. The thesis focuses on the use of international labour standards by judges in the context of the cooperation among judiciary authorities and quasi-judicial specialized bodies. In particular, the research considers some judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, as Demir and Enerji Yapi, where ILO instruments, together with the European Social Charter and the decisions of the European Committee of Social Rights, were used to extend the scope of art. 11 ECHR so as to cover the right to collective bargaining and collective action. In the light of the Lisbon Treaty modifications, the thesis considers, after the ECJ rulings in the Viking and Laval cases, if and how ILO standards and the recent ECHR case-law may have a positive impact on EU, stimulating a fairer balancing between economic freedoms and social rights.

Avec la globalisation de l’économie, l’entreprise traditionnelle est devenue un réseau global de producteurs liés par des contrats. À la suite de certains abus commis par les entreprises multinationales, notamment en ce qui concerne les droits fondamentaux des travailleurs, les entreprises et la société civile ont développé des mécanismes de régulation privés dont les codes de conduite privés. La présente étude cherche à déterminer quels pouvaient être les véritables destinataires des codes de conduite : les travailleurs du pays d’origine de l’entreprise (généralement situés dans un pays développé) ou les travailleurs des pays de production (généralement situés dans des pays en développement). À cette fin, le mémoire compare le contenu des codes de conduite de Nike, de Gap et de Levi-Strauss sur ce sujet avec les observations de l’Organisation internationale du travail pour les travailleurs des États-Unis, de l’Inde et du Bangladesh. Certains écarts entre les protections accordées par les codes et les besoins des travailleurs sont ainsi identifiés. Dans la dernière partie du mémoire, la question d’étude est élargie afin d’examiner si les codes ne seraient pas destinés à des personnes autres que les travailleurs, soient les consommateurs, les actionnaires ou l’entreprise elle-même. / The globalised economy has transformed the traditional corporation into a worldwide network of producers connected by contracts. In light of certain abuses committed by multinational corporations, corporations and civil society have developed regulatory mechanisms including private codes of conduct. The purpose of this study is to determine for which workers the codes of conduct were developed: the workers of the country of origin of the corporation (generally located in developed countries) or the workers of the countries of production (generally located in developing countries). By comparing the content of the codes of conduct of Nike, Gap and Levi-Strauss regarding freedom of association with the observations of the International Labour Organisation for the United-States, India and Bangladesh, we identified a certain number of gaps between the content of the codes and the needs of the workers. In the last part of the study, we widened our research question to determine whether or not the codes might be destined to people other than the workers, namely consumers, shareholders or the corporation itself.

Dans un important arrêt rendu en 2007 dans l’affaire Health Services and Support, la Cour suprême du Canada a reconnu pour la première fois que la liberté d’association énoncée à la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés protégeait la «capacité des syndiqués d’engager des négociations collectives sur des problèmes reliés au milieu de travail». Pour conclure ainsi, la Cour trouve appui dans le droit international du travail. Avec cette décision, la Cour renverse sa position établie une vingtaine d’années plus tôt voulant que la négociation collective ne soit pas une activité bénéficiant d’une protection à titre de droit fondamental. Suite à ce changement de paradigme, nombre d’auteurs ont été d’avis que la constitutionnalisation du droit de négociation collective pourrait avoir des effets sur la validité de différentes mesures législatives et sur l’interprétation des lois encadrant les régimes de relations de travail. De plus, la négociation collective étant historiquement indissociable de la grève, il y avait tout lieu de croire que la protection de la Charte pourrait être étendue au droit de grève. Par la suite, en 2011, la Cour suprême a rendu la décision Fraser portant sur l’accès à un régime de représentation collective, précisant la portée du droit de négociation collective tel qu’envisagé dans Health Services. Le présent mémoire recense la jurisprudence qui a abordé la protection constitutionnelle de la négociation collective en droit public canadien et en droit privé québécois depuis l’arrêt Health Services afin d’identifier ses effets sur la validité des restrictions au droit de grève, sur la validité des restrictions au contenu des négociations et sur l’imposition de conditions de travail, sur la validité des exclusions de certaines catégories de travailleurs des régimes de représentation collective, et sur l’interprétation des dispositions de ces régimes. Les résultats de la recherche nous permettent de conclure que la constitutionnalisation du droit de négociation collective a engendré un certain volume de contestations de la part d’organisations syndicales. Ces procédures ont porté fruit dans des situations où l’atteinte aux droits était similaire aux précédents de la Cour suprême ainsi que dans un cas lié au droit de grève. Les effets plus vastes envisagés dans la recension de la littérature ne se sont pas matérialisés. Par ailleurs, nos résultats en droit privé indiquent que la constitutionnalisation du droit de grève n’a pas eu d’impact sur l’interprétation des régimes de relations industrielles. Enfin, le recours ou non au droit international par les tribunaux n’a pas d’effet sur nos résultats. / In 2007, the Supreme Court of Canada issued an important decision in the case Health Services and Support, as it recognised for the first time that the guarantee of freedom of association under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects the capacity of members of labour unions to engage in collective bargaining on workplace issues. The Court finds support in international labour law in order to come to this conclusion. With this decision, the Supreme Court overturns its position established some twenty years before that collective bargaining does not benefit from the protection of the Charter as a fundamental right. This paradigm change led many authors to comment that the shift would probably lead to the constitutional invalidity of a number of legislative measures and would affect the interpretation of labour law regimes. Furthermore, collective bargaining being historically interrelated with strikes, it would be logical that Charter protection be extended to the right to strike. Later on, in 2011, the Supreme Court issued a decision in the Fraser case on the right to access a labour relations regime, shedding light on the ambit of the constitutional guarantee. This research surveys case law that dealt with the constitutional protection of collective bargaining after Health Services in order to assess its influence on the validity of restrictions on the right to strike, on the validity of restrictions on bargaining and the imposition of working conditions, on the validity of exclusions of certain categories of workers from labour relations legal regimes and on their interpretation. Our results show that the constitutionalization of the right to bargain collectively has led to a certain volume of legal challenges by labour unions, which were successful in instances where the infringement on bargaining rights were similar to the Supreme Court precedents as well as one case related to the right to strike. The larger influence as foreseen in our literature review did not materialize. The constitutionalization of collective bargaining has had no effect on the interpretation of labour law regimes in private law. Finally, the use of international labour law has no measurable effect on our results.

Law and development mainstream conceptions of labour market policies, while still marked by long-dominant views of contract law as economically superior to any labour regulation, have recently incorporated certain specific labour (human) rights. Core labour rights are thus accepted by global policy-makers, on the basis of their radical distinction from non-core labour standards and their rationalization according to certain foundational principles. This thesis criticizes the prevailing dichotomies between core labour rights and non-core standards, on the one hand, and contract law and regulation, on the other, bringing to bear the post-legal realist idea of legal indeterminacy. It argues that the organizing legal concepts that justify these dichotomies contain gaps and ambiguities that often lead to contradictory and indeterminate outcomes. It thus suggests that the core/non-core labour standards and contract/regulation distinctions are unproductive and should be rejected if a better conception of labour governance is to come to fruition.

Law and development mainstream conceptions of labour market policies, while still marked by long-dominant views of contract law as economically superior to any labour regulation, have recently incorporated certain specific labour (human) rights. Core labour rights are thus accepted by global policy-makers, on the basis of their radical distinction from non-core labour standards and their rationalization according to certain foundational principles. This thesis criticizes the prevailing dichotomies between core labour rights and non-core standards, on the one hand, and contract law and regulation, on the other, bringing to bear the post-legal realist idea of legal indeterminacy. It argues that the organizing legal concepts that justify these dichotomies contain gaps and ambiguities that often lead to contradictory and indeterminate outcomes. It thus suggests that the core/non-core labour standards and contract/regulation distinctions are unproductive and should be rejected if a better conception of labour governance is to come to fruition.

Univ., Diss.--Berlin, 2005. / Literaturverz. S. 265 - 285.