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Building on earlier work, we state the case for an economic sociology of labour law which recognises and investigates the co-constitutive nature of law and the economy. Reviewing recent literature which shares this ambition, we argue that an important element of a co-constitutive theory of law and the economy is an understanding of the ‘legal consciousness’ of economic actors, meaning, in essence, their participation in the construction of legality or legalities, defined here as social structures which both enable and constrain actors. While a small number of studies have sought to understand the legal consciousness of workers, none that we are aware of has investigated the legal consciousness of human resource managers. This is a significant omission. Drawing on existing research in the field, we demonstrate the importance of human resource management (HRM) as a site where legalities can become bound up with other, especially market-focused and managerial, rationales, with significant consequences for compliance and enforcement. As a first step towards understanding the legal consciousness of human resource managers, we then situate HRM within a context of contradictory professional discourses and ideologies, and of processes of justification and legitimation of contemporary capitalism.

No abstract available.

This paper revisits the notions of contract and status found in classical sociology, legal theory, and labour law. Adopting an historical perspective, it explores the fragmentation of the status of industrial citizenship during the neoliberal period and discusses the enduring usefulness of the status/contract distinction in analyzing current trends in the regulation of working relations, including the spread of “gig” or platform-mediated work. Elements of status, it is argued, must always be present if work is to be performed and paid for as the parties require it. Claims to the contrary – for example, that the gig economy creates a labour market without search frictions and only minimal transaction costs: contracts without status – assume an undersocialized model of (monadic) social action that has no basis in the reality of social life (Durkheim, Weber). Still, status may come in a variety of forms that are more or less desirable from the perspective of workers, businesses, and society at large. The paper traces what it conceives as the privatization of status via contracts between employers and workers under the pressure of marketization and dominated by corporate hierarchies. Towards the end of the twentieth century, sociologists observed the division of workers into two groups or classes – core (with relatively well-paid and secure employment) and peripheral (low-paid and insecure). Thirty years later, gross inequalities of wealth and conceptions of the neoliberal self as ever-improving, ever-perfectible, are combining to create novel forms of status not fully anticipated by the literature. Wir beginnen mit einem Rückblick auf zwei Begriffe, Vertrag und Status, die in der klassischen Soziologie, in der Rechtstheorie und im Arbeitsrecht eine prominente Rolle spielen. In einer historischen Perspektive untersuchen wir die Fragmentierung des auf industrielle Bürgerrechte gegründeten Arbeitnehmerstatus in der neoliberalen Periode und betonen den bleibenden Nutzen der Unterscheidung zwischen Status und Vertrag für die Analyse gegenwärtiger Entwicklungen in der Regulierung von Arbeitsbeziehungen, einschließlich der Ausbreitung von sogenannter Gig-Arbeit und durch Plattformen vermittelter Dienstleistungen. Unser Argument ist, dass Elemente von Status präsent sein müssen, wo immer Arbeit so geleistet und bezahlt werden soll, wie zwischen den Vertragsparteien vereinbart. Vorstellungen wie die, dass die Gig-Ökonomie einen Arbeitsmarkt ohne Suchkosten und mit nur minimalen Transaktionskosten hervorbringt – Vertrag ohne Status –, unterstellen ein untersozialisiertes Modell (monadischen) sozialen Handelns, das keine Grundlage in der Wirklichkeit des sozialen Lebens hat (Durkheim, Weber). Allerdings kann Status eine Vielzahl von Formen annehmen, die aus der Perspektive von Beschäftigern, Beschäftigten und der Gesellschaft als Ganzes mehr oder weniger wünschenswert sind. Das Papier verfolgt den Prozess der Privatisierung von Status mittels Vertrag unter dem Druck des Marktes und der Macht von Unternehmenshierarchien. Gegen Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts beobachteten Soziologen eine Spaltung der Arbeiterschaft in zwei Gruppen oder Klassen, die eine im Kern (mit relativ guter Bezahlung und vergleichsweise hoher Beschäftigungssicherheit) und die andere an der Peripherie (schlecht bezahlt und prekär) des Beschäftigungssystems. Drei Jahrzehnte später verbinden sich krasse wirtschaftliche Ungleichheit und Vorstellungen von einem in ständiger Verbesserung und Perfektionierung begriffenen neoliberalen Selbst in der Schaffung neuer, von der Literatur nicht antizipierter Formen von vertragsbasiertem Status. Contents 1 Introduction 2 Status and contract in the age of industrial citizenship 3 The neoliberal turn: Flexibility versus justice 4 Liberalization as emancipation? 5 Four workers, peripheral and core Gig workers Amazon warehouse workers Care workers University professors 6 Contract, status, and post-industrial justice References

No abstract available.

This paper revisits the notions of contract and status found in classical sociology, legal theory, and labour law. Adopting an historical perspective, it explores the fragmentation of the status of industrial citizenship during the neoliberal period and discusses the enduring usefulness of the status/contract distinction in analyzing current trends in the regulation of working relations, including the spread of “gig” or platform-mediated work. Elements of status, it is argued, must always be present if work is to be performed and paid for as the parties require it. Claims to the contrary – for example, that the gig economy creates a labour market without search frictions and only minimal transaction costs: contracts without status – assume an undersocialized model of (monadic) social action that has no\ud basis in the reality of social life (Durkheim, Weber). Still, status may come in a variety of forms that are more or less desirable from the perspective of workers, businesses, and society at large. The paper traces what it conceives as the privatization of status via contracts between employers and workers\ud under the pressure of marketization and dominated by corporate hierarchies. Towards the end of the twentieth century, sociologists observed the division of workers into two groups or classes – core (with relatively well-paid and secure employment) and peripheral (low-paid and insecure). Thirty years later, gross inequalities of wealth and conceptions of the neoliberal self as ever-improving, everperfectible, are combining to create novel forms of status not fully anticipated by the literature.

No abstract available.