Understanding Labor Relations: Types, Characteristics, and Legal Sources

Posted on Jan 14, 2025 in Law & Jurisprudence

Understanding Labor Relations

1. Work: Different human activities requiring physical or mental effort.

2. Three Types of Work:

  • Work that constitutes an employment relationship.
  • Work that constitutes a special employment relationship.
  • Work where no employment relationship exists.

3. Key Differences: Labor relations are governed by labor law. Special labor relations are governed by specific regulations, with labor law applying only to matters not covered by those regulations. Non-labor relations are governed by other rules.

Characteristics of Labor Relations

4. Labor Relations: These involve an employment contract and meet five characteristics:

  • Personal: The work must be performed by the hired worker.
  • Voluntary: The work must be done willingly.
  • Employed: The worker is employed by an employer.
  • Paid: The worker receives a salary for their work.
  • Dependent: The worker is subject to the employer’s direction.

Special Labor Relations

5. Special Labor Relations: These involve an employment relationship but have their own specific rules. Employment law applies only in areas not covered by these specific regulations.

6. Examples of Special Labor Relations:

  • Senior management
  • Domestic servants
  • Inmates in correctional institutions
  • Professional athletes
  • Artists in public performances
  • People with disabilities in special employment centers

Non-Labor Relations

7. Non-Labor Relations: These are industrial relations where labor law cannot be applied, either because they lack the characteristics of an employment relationship or because they have their own legislation.

8. Examples of Non-Labor Relations:

  • Work performed by public officials
  • Work done out of friendship or kindness
  • Family work (unless there is a contract and payment)
  • Self-employment

Legal Framework

9. Law: A set of legal rules that govern human relations within a society and are mandatory for all individuals.

10. Sources of Law: These have the power to create rules.

Formal Sources of Law

11. Formal Sources: These are manifested as legal standards.

12. Material Sources:

  • The Legislature: General courts or parliament (Congress and Senate) and legislative assemblies of autonomous communities.
  • The Executive: Government, sectoral ministries, and government agencies of autonomous communities.
  • Lower-level administrative bodies: County councils, municipalities, etc.
  • Other groups of people.

13. Formal Sources:

  • The law: Broadly understood as a written rule of law.
  • Custom: The modus operandi of a group in an area not regulated by written law.
  • General principles of law: Rules that apply when there is no applicable law or custom.

Order of Application

14. Order of Application:

  1. Written law or regulation.
  2. Custom, which applies when there is no law.
  3. General principles of law, applicable only when there is no law or custom.

15. Laws: Rules passed by the legislature, mainly the Spanish Constitution, Organic Laws, and ordinary laws.