Principles of Labour Law
21 Nov 2023
16:00 -18:00
Open to: All
Room G24, Faculty of Law
The David Williams Building
10 West Rd
Cambridge
CB3 9DZ
United Kingdom
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Speaker: Professor Cristina Mangarelli, University of the Republic, Uruguay
About the seminar topic
In this presentation, reference will be made to the principles of labour law proposed by the Uruguayan jurist Américo Plá Rodríguez in his book ‘Los Principios del Derecho del Trabajo’ (‘The Principles of Labour Law’), first published in 1975. This work has had a great impact in many Latin American countries, and has been widely applied to enable judges to resolve specific cases. The ‘principles’ are guiding ideas on which labour law is based. These principles are used: a) to fill gaps in the law; b) to interpret rules, arguments, conduct of the parties, and the facts of the case; c) to inspire legislation. The principles proposed by Plá Rodríguez are: protectivity, inalienability, continuity, primacy of reality, reasonableness, and good faith. These principles define the scope of the discipline of labour law, by comparison to other legal fields.
The seminar will discuss the use of these principles in jurisprudence (case law) in Uruguay, with a number of practical examples being discussed. In the final reflections, after considering whether these are universal principles or interpretative criteria which depend on a given country´s legal system, it will be argued that the enumeration set out by Plá Rodríguez does indeed cover the fundamental ideas that distinguish labour law as a branch of law.