was adjudged a quantitatively fixed remuneration, while the opposite party got a potentiality, which to a great extent was open for him to decide. Thus, the contract of employment is open-ended and status has become a dominant element in working life, which is said to be based upon the doctrine of contract. Status, according to Fox, is a system, which concerns form as well as content; something is prescribed in advance, outside the disposition of the persons concerned and this something means an hierarchy, in which one actor is subordinated to another actor. Fox concludes that modern contractual notions never came to terms with the demands from the labour market. As a reply to Henry Maine’s (1822-1888) theses that Western society has gone from status to contract20, Fox means that status relationships have survived in the modern contracts of employment, which he considers to be relationships far away from the familiar pre-industrial, master-servant relationship. Furthermore, he stresses the bias of this process in modern labour law in the sense that the legal system has maintained the servant’s-worker’s far-reaching duty to obedience and loyalty, while the master’semployer’s diffuse duty to give protection and care has no doubt been on the decline.Thus, the chief rule of modern labour law has been to protect the employer’s prerogative.21 Fox’ ideas about status and contract have been elaborated by BrunoVeneziani, who claims that the notion of a specific contract of employment evolved during the period from the fall of the guild system to the beginning of the 20th century. By the end of this period throughoutWestern Europe the relation between employer and worker was no longer tied to the ideology of servile hiring but was classified under the heading of the contract of employment. Although regulated to a great extent by the same general principles of law as other contracts, the contract of c o n t i n u i t y a n d c o n t r ac t 25 20 Maine 1931 (first published in 1861). 21 Fox 1974.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjYyNDk=