Social Norms and Legal Norms at Work

Wolfgang Streeck and Ruth Dukes (University of Glasgow)

The project explores the relationship between informal norms of industrial justice, as generated by workers in occupational communities, and formal norms in labor law regulating contracting for work under different labor constitutions. It brings together empirical sociology and normative legal reasoning, to help overcome what is called “the crisis of labor law” in a post-industrial world of fragmented workplaces and diverse forms of employment and self-employment. Particular attention is paid to intermediary institutions, like collective bargaining, connecting social life at and around work to politics and law-making. This work is carried out in cooperation with the project “Work on Demand: Contracting for Work in a Changing Economy” (WoD), funded by the European Research Council and directed by Ruth Dukes at the University of Glasgow.