Cayley Boyd Dittburger PE&SSMS February 2016 Labor Laws and Historical Action in Great Britain and the U.S. From ancient beginnings, the British Empire grew to become a huge political force and a model developed nation. The parliamentary union of the Kingdom in 1609 created a strong bond between Scotland and England, and from that point on they experienced slow but steady political evolution in a way that was remarkably different than both their neighbors to the south in continental Europe and the Americans to the west. The U.S on the other hand, created laws that were purposefully different than what they saw as the antiquated and antidemocratic ruling system of their former colonizers, the British. While those laws were meant to be different, …show more content…
Britain remains today a constitutional monarchy, with the queen as the figurehead of state and the democratically elected Prime Minister as the acting head of state. The Minister has a set jurisdiction that gives them significant power within the British system, including the power to appoint ministers and control the majority party policy, and they share power with the democratically elected representatives in the House of Commons (Kaufmann). These governmental structures are fairly standard, and reflect similar structures around the modern world. However, Britain has significant differences in the historical formation of this arrangement that create a divergent process for lawmaking and a different mindset for British workers when it comes to their rights. Perhaps the most important written source for lawmaking in the U.S, France, Germany, and other countries is their respective Constitutions. Britain, having been through years and years of slow progression as opposed to an abrupt revolution, has no written constitution. What this means for the U.K. is that the power of the government in term of lawmaking is not explicitly limited (Kaufmann). The evolution of workers laws is directly affected by the status of lawmaking, especially in the individual case of Britain, where for most of modern history government has played a small role in ensuring the …show more content…
It had no effect on workers safety or industrial regulation, and worker-employer relationships were maintained as “paternalistic,” with unwritten contracts enforced by both parties and a certain element of trust. In the 18th century the first workers organization in Britain was formed, but it was deemed criminal in 1799 as the Combination Act was put in place. The Act was later repealed in 1824 which allowed for collective action of workers (Kaufmann). At this time, liberalism shaped much of the policy created by British governmental bodies, so there was an intentional “hands off” approach to legislation social issues, which created turmoil when those problems could not be privately solved. Liberal ideas seeped into the workers sphere and helped create the “Chartist” movement, which maintained the belief that the government’s intervention was unneeded, and employees could use self-help to create meaningful development in their rights as the working body. With this development, workers organizations continued their tradition of unwritten contractual employment combined with collective bargaining techniques. One of the most valuable negotiating tools the unions could use was called the “closed shop principle,” in which employers would be pushed into only hiring organized workers (Kaufmann). This stage in British labor laws and the adverse reaction workers had to government