Labor law in the russian legal system

Abstract

For many years, labor law in the Russian (and Soviet) legal system was regarded as specialized in a narrow segment of legal relations. In the recent decades, the labor law has developed, pushing itself significantly higher in the hierarchy of legal fields, namely, in the status of fundamental (so-called material) fields along with the criminal, administrative, and civil law. This article analyzes the causes of this phenomenon and describes the generic role of the legal regulation of labor relations for the entire system of property and non-property relations governed by law. As a result of studying different opinions on the classification of labor law as private or public sectors, as well as global experience, the author draws a conclusion about the national identity of Russian labor law, which is characterized by reliance on a unified labor relationship that organically combines individual and collective. The historical relationship of labor law with civil law shows the universality of labor obligations that bind the employee “with the whole world”. Changes in the place of labor law in the system of branches of law are explained by transformations and expansion of methods of legal regulation of labor relations by social partnership. It raises the problem of a certain convergence of labor law to administrative law, which is assessed as the most serious danger that can distort the economic and legal nature of labor relations. It follows that the insolvency of the use of statistical methods in the production sphere, as well as arguments are presented to solve the problem of distinguishing labor and administrative law. The main finding is related to determining the place of labor law in the legal system. Given the importance and homogeneity of labor relations, currently labor law has ceased to be a specialized legal body and should be classified as a substantive material area of law.