c o n t i n u i t y a n d c o n t r ac t 259 different interests reigned.A change in the position of the worker in the direction of the proposal found support by making an analogy to the labour contract from the market’s ordinary language about barter transactions. In exchange for greater influence in the directing of the company, the worker would be willing to show a greater interest in production. Secondly, the majority of the committee developed a view of the worker’s demand for liberty as being a value in itself. The purely contractual construction, it was stated, from the worker’s point of view, was defective in that it turned a blind eye to the fact that the labour that the worker sold could not like other commodities be separated from the living worker.The cardinal point of the entire “modern worker issue”was that having someone’s labour at one’s disposal entailed having the worker himself at one’s disposal. No one any more wanted to question that part of the protective legislation that was based on meeting the reasonable demand for a healthy work environment. However, if the workers’ demands were broadened to refer to control of certain working conditions, disciplinary relationships etc., it would be difficult to draw a line that would be impossible to cross without depriving the employer any of his “natural” rights. If the worker was to have his voice heard when it came to issuing plant regulations, why not when it came to appointing a foreman? From the trade union’s point of view, there were not any natural boundaries other than could be derived from the actual power relationships.Was it not in line with ordinary principles for freedom of contract that the worker sold his labour only on condition that certain terms that happened to prevail for the moment were changed? Could not the worker’s demands be formulated as the price that was put on the product and which the buyer could accept or reject? The committee decisively rejected the idea that increased worker influence would intrude upon the employer’s “natural” rights. There was no more intrusion than when a contract was entered
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