ON TWO CONCEPTS OF THE COMMON GOOD: CONSTITUTIONAL DILEMMAS AND POSSIBLE FOUNDATIONS OF LABOUR LAW

Abstract

The common good is often considered to be the value that integrates a community. Reflection on the common good has taken place primarily in the context of the state. Nevertheless, the common good can also be spoken of in the context of different types of community, including the community created in the workplace. How might one understand the statement that a workplace is the common good of all of its employees?The aim of this paper is to outline two fundamentally different concepts of the common good that have arisen in Polish constitutionalism in connection with the recognition of the state as the common good of all citizens. One of these concepts was applied in the April Constitution of 1935: it has at its centre the raison d’état. The other concept of the common good was adopted in the Constitution of the Republic of Poland of 1997: at its centre is the dignity of the individual. Depending on which of these concepts is adopted, the relationship between the individual and the state will be fundamentally different. The first leads to the conclusion that – to put it simply – the individual is for the state, while the second implies that the state is for the person. Assuming that a workplace is the common good of all employees, depending on which of these concepts of the common good is adopted, either the workplace or the employee will be the primary value, and the perception of the relationship between the employee and the workplace will be fundamentally different.