Fat Cats, Production Networks, and the Right to Fair Pay

Abstract

AbstractShould there be a legal right to fair pay so that anyone might challenge the relative fairness of their pay? International human rights law does not clearly support such a right, partly due to the uncertain meaning of fairness in pay. The article challenges this uncertainty, explaining the marginal relevance of theories of distributive justice. Standards of fairness should be discovered instead in principles of interpersonal justice, particularly the bilateral principle of good faith, and in associational principles of desert by reference to contribution and recognition of persons. These contain an egalitarian impulse providing moral reasons for rejecting market rates of pay and, it is argued, should apply beyond single corporate entities, to corporate groups and networks of companies sharing an integrated production scheme. Finally, appropriate regulations enacting a legal right to fair pay are explored with a view to achieving reflexive yet effective regulation using works councils to fix outer limits to wage dispersal ratios.