Fair Wages in European Legal History

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Thorsten Keiser; Dr. Thomas Pierson
• Subject Area: Principles of Law and Jurisprudence
• Term: from 2018 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 399923371

This project in the field of Legal History focusses on the so far underestimated but crucial problem of just wages. On a methodological level the project seeks a new approach by using history of justice, instead as legal history. Object of research is the legal reflection on wages and their philosophical and economic legitimacy. The period of analysis covers a time span from the late middle ages, where scholasticism combined various moral and theological arguments on just wages, to English legislation on fair wages in the 19th century and the specific legal problems following the dissolution of standard employment relationships approximately after 1970. Arguments for the justification of certain wages shall be analyzed. The focus hereby does not only lie on legal arguments in a narrow sense, but also on philosophical and economic considerations, providing specific sources of normativity, which need to be seen in contexts of legal history and linked to sources of legal history such as juridical literature, legislation or court decisions. In order to meet this objective, the research experience of two principal investigators and applicants for the DFG-research support must be brought together. This should help to create new chances for young researches in a joint project on the comprehensive legal history of just wages in Europe. For the gathering of historical sources about wages we follow two main strategies, which are linked to one another. One approach focusses on certain professional branches, since social status and labour conditions in specific environments can be relevant as sources of normativity for payment. Another approach collects sources following academic or scientific fields of discourse, such as catholic movements, socialist movements in the 19th century etc., which again can determine the reflections on wages according to political preconceptions or legal traditions. A link of both approaches facilitates a comprehensive and profound analysis of the various normative conditions of remuneration for work on a horizontal and vertical level. The project is divided in single work packages containing two PhD-projects, one on judicial conflicts about unfair wages in Germany, another about the justification and legal regulation of income of children and women, with particular regard to married women and the conflicts with patrimonial claims of their husbands in Germany and France. As effect of the synergies of the various studies we aim at the development of a typology of criteria for just wages in different epochs and social and political environments. A catalogue of arguments for just wages is to be presented on an international concluding conference. The publications deriving from the project can not only enhance the current state of research in legal history but also the understanding of actual political debates on the law of labour and industrial relations.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Cooperation Partner: Professor Dr. Friedrich Lenger