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StatuteLaborers 5 - 11 Feb 2009 - Main.AdamKrotman
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Labor Policy after 1348 and Theory of Contract | | | Draft Version | |
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< | The growth of assumpsit has its origins in the Black Death of 1346, and the first national labour legislation that emerged as a result. The massive toll of the Black Death on the workforce meant a dramatic increase in the bargaining power of workers and serf – relative scarcity meant that their work product had gained an increased per-unit value (31 J. Leg. Studies S582). This, predictably, resulted in an attempt to renegotiate wages and terms of service: “workers began to refuse to perform customary tasks unless more compensation and fewer servile obligations were forthcoming” (31 J. Leg. Studies S583). In addition, there was an element of regional variation in the depletion of the labor force. This gave serfs and laborers the opportunity leave their traditional lords, and seek new employment on more favorable conditions – greater pay and fewer servile restrictions and obligations. Facing labor shortages, lords whose manors had suffered a greater depletion often accepted these demands, and refused to return runaway serfs, breaking down the traditional lack of labor competition and creating a new labor market (31 J. Leg. Studies S583). | >
> | The growth of assumpsit has its origins in the Black Death of 1346, and the first national labour legislation that emerged as a result (insert FN linking to txt of statute). The massive toll of the Black Death on the workforce meant a dramatic increase in the bargaining power of workers and serf – relative scarcity meant that their work product had gained an increased per-unit value (31 J. Leg. Studies S582). This, predictably, resulted in an attempt to renegotiate wages and terms of service: “workers began to refuse to perform customary tasks unless more compensation and fewer servile obligations were forthcoming” (31 J. Leg. Studies S583). In addition, there was an element of regional variation in the depletion of the labor force. This gave serfs and laborers the opportunity leave their traditional lords, and seek new employment on more favorable conditions – greater pay and fewer servile restrictions and obligations. Facing labor shortages, lords whose manors had suffered a greater depletion often accepted these demands, and refused to return runaway serfs, breaking down the traditional lack of labor competition and creating a new labor market (31 J. Leg. Studies S583). | | | In 1349, Edward III attempted, in essence, to freeze wages at the levels that they had been in 1346 with the Ordinance of Laborers, requiring that “all healthy non-self-sufficient people under sixty years of age work at reasonable wages until the end of their agreed term.” (93 Mich. L. Rev. 1771). In 1351 these attempts were taken further and codified in the Statute of Laborers. This act set out, inter alia, maximum wages for certain laborers, with wages originally set at pre-plague levels, but adjusted upwards in keeping with the “reasonable wage” requirement of the original Ordinance of Laborers; compulsory service; requirements that laborers appear every year before the constable or bailiff to swear to uphold obligations; prescription of imprisonment or fines for non-compliance; and private lawsuits to sue laborers and employers in violation (15 J.Leg. Med. 393).
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