predominant private law approach to the employment relationship has made possible an application of the rules of the BGB’s book 2 on the law of obligations. Several labour law matters have been regulated by legislation outside the BGB, such as working hours, vacation with pay, minimum wage, industrial safety, health care, co-determination, protection of employment, etc. The German Labour Court judges, assisted by law professors, moreover, have accomplished a most significant contribution. With reference to the general clauses of the BGB, such as Treu und Glauben in section 242, they have read into the contract of employment a number of general principles of law.Thus, these legal actors have concluded that the very peculiarity (Besonderheit) of the contract of employment, which is characterised by the employee’s personality, leads to a certain condensation and a “natural” extension of secondary obligations within and outside the workplace.These kinds of obligations are in general not found in other relations that come under the law of obligations. For the employee this means a collection of duties: obedience, loyalty, secrecy, etc.; and for the employer a duty to take care of his employees and treat them equally.335 It is true that the contemporary German judges and scholars aim to treat the contract of employment as an equivalent to relationships that come under the law of obligations, for example sale and rent. At the same time they have obviously not totally thrown out the tradition of ideas from the theory about a “Gemeinschaftsverhältnis” as the contract’s legal foundation. This sketch of labour law history in France, Great Britain and Germany during the first decades of the 20th century indicates more similarities than differences.The new, more flexible form p a r t i v, c h a p t e r 6 164 335 Klatt 1990, p. 354. 6. 4 a se parate contract of employment, subordinat ion and collect ive se lf-regulat ion
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