The employer had a right of direction and discipline while the worker had a duty of obedience. It was irrelevant whether the worker had agreed upon the duty or not, since it went with the “nature” (“aus dem Wesen”) of the contract of industrial work. Furthermore, this principle was expressly recognised in the legislation on domestic work.The dimension about personal protection of the worker originated from the fact that the worker’s personality was directly interwoven in the contractual relationship - he did not perform something, he performed it with himself and this personality must not be given up (geopfert werden) in the interest of someone else.This protection of the worker, however, was a creation of modern society and modern labour law and had its point of departure in particular legislative acts about occupational hazards. Sinzheimer summed up that the general terms of the solidarity relationship as well as the separate terms of the individual relationship received their content by the employer’s sole right of determination. All these rights, “flew” to the employer through the contract of work. No other relationship within the law of contracts let the will of one of the parties in such a manner permeate all aspects of the relationship.The contract in question was not only a reciprocal contract, but also a ruling contract (Herrschaftsvertrag).Although the worker voluntarily entered this area of subordination, he was not free as long as he remained there. There were some limits which the employer must not overstep, but these did not found any private law relationships between the worker and the employee; on the contrary they concerned only the public law relationship between the employer and the state. In this matter, the worker could not make any claims on the employer. Sinzheimer also elaborated Gierke’s thesis that the starting point for analysing the legal “peculiarities” of the contract of employment (das Arbeitsvertrag) must consider the established positions in society. Since the existing legislative rules themselves did not p a r t i v, c h a p t e r 6 156
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