Paper's abstract

Bernard Teyssié, The Firm and Labour Law
Labour law is confronted to a firm whose goal was initially set by others than itself. If law perceives this as hindering its blossoming, it will try to break it in order to impose its own pattern. Not bothering with the frontiers drawn by corporate law, it favours a flexible conception of the company, going to the essential: an economic activity, a community of men. But from this entity, it intends to impose an organisation which, by serving the participation goal, might be at the root of stiffness only perceived as so many obstacles to its management.@However, even if it began as a "law for the wage-earner" (the formulated norms tending above all to enhance his protection or to better his participation in the management, the results or the capital of the firm), French labour law today tends to become a "law for the company" taking into account, without renouncing its original preoccupation (and even giving them new applications), the preoccupation and requirements of the firm concerning either its management or organisation modes. It is true that a company has pressure means allowing it to see its claims satisfied, particularly in a country where the number of unemployed goes by millions: the threat to massively suppress jobs by a quickening of the automation process or by delocalisation must be taken seriously. Not to mention that in a time when the industrial activity forms using a high number of workers are disappearing, a company can function without any worker (by appealing, for jobs that are not performed by automatons, to subcontractors, temporary workers or agents...) whereas a worker without a company is quite difficult to envision.

Key Words : firm, labour, company
t. 41, 1997 : p. 355-385