Incidencia de la descentralización productiva en el concepto laboral de empresario

Abstract

Production decentralisation has meant the introduction of new forms of work organisation ranging from simple contracting to highly complex legal forms. Such new forms entail triangular relationships that question the traditional interpretation of employment contracts as unitary and bilateral entities. The traditional characterization of the employer in labour law has thus become obsolete and needs to revisited, aiming at a more complex, multiple or plural conception. One of the begging questions relates to whether mediate employment relationships imply either a joint or a separate exercise of employer’s powers and their precise articulation. The second issue revolves around an eventual extension of liability as a common solution to the different cases of production decentralisation given the lack of a specific protection for affected workers. An extension of liability would serve as a means to protect employees without the need to previously grant employer status to the business actors involved. This dissertation is divided into for chapters: Chapter one serves an introduction addressing how the notion of employer has changed due to the unstoppable advance of production decentralisation. Chapter second presents a detailed analysis of different models of production decentralisation resulting in complex business structures or triangular relationships where the figure of the mediate employer emerges. In such contexts, there is a simultaneous presence of various employers that have varied relationships with their employees. This plurality is the origin of a wide range of issues. Chapter three studies the problems deriving from the coexistence of two employers in the aforementioned situations of inter-employer cooperation regarding the directive powers of the employer. The last chapter addresses extension of liability as a protecting device for employees in cases of mediate employer. Firstly, its basis and justification are analysed, focusing on the legal mechanisms that would render it operative. Secondly, considering the lack of specific regulation for triangular relationships extending the scope of corporate liability to all actors benefiting from the employees’ work, the concrete cases covered by either legislative or case-law responses are analysed.