Labour laws should be abolished

In 2006, the European Court of Justice ruled that the Department of Trade and Industry has misinterpreted clauses 3 and 5 of the Working Time Directive. Clause 3 states: “Member states shall take the measures necessary to ensure that every worker is entitled to a minimum daily rest period of 11 consecutive hours per 24-hour period”. Clause 5 says that workers are additionally entitled to at least one uninterrupted rest period of 24 hours every week.

The tricky word here is “entitled”. The DTI interpreted it to mean entitled. They instructed employers that they must allow, but need not require, employees to take these rest periods. According to the ECJ, however, “entitled” actually means obliged. Employees may not choose to take shorter rest periods, and employers must not give them this option.

The European judges are surely correct on the matter of interpretation. If the words of European legislators are open to several interpretations, then deciding which was intended is simple; it must be the one that most restricts freedom of choice. And if you think that obliged is not a possible interpretation of “entitled”, then there is much you could learn from the judiciary about post-modern semiotics.

If not surprising, the ruling may still seem unfortunate. British employees already enjoyed the right to these rest periods. When it suited them, however, they were free to take shorter breaks – perhaps to earn overtime or to negotiate a longer break for another occasion. This option was surely valuable to them. Why should the manufacturing union Amicus have asked the ECJ to eliminate it? And why should the TUC have welcomed the ECJ’s ruling?

To see why, note that in the labour market employees are the suppliers and employers are the consumers. Employers buy the labour offered for sale by workers. The Working Time Directive, as now interpreted, is a regulation about the kind of service workers may offer for sale.

Product regulations usually impose minimum standards. When it comes to labour, however, we get maximum standards. The ECJ’s ruling means that, with respect to the flexibility of hours worked, employees may not offer a product exceeding a certain quality. And that is precisely why unions support this interpretation. Maximum standard regulations are required by suppliers attempting to fix their prices above the market price.

Consider a different example. Suppose you manufactured a basic type of bicycle. If the most efficient bike-maker could produce such a bike at a cost of £100, then this would soon be its market price. In a free market, price competition between suppliers drives the price of goods down to the cost of producing them. This is nice for consumers but not for suppliers. How might you avoid this unpleasant consequence of competition?

You could try collusion. Create the British Association of Bike-Makers and, at your annual conference, agree that no one will sell bikes for less than £200. Or lobby the government to set a minimum bicycle price of £200.

Alas, a minimum price will not work on its own, because it does not stop competition on quality. If everyone must sell bikes at £200, and my competitors’ bikes are worth £100, then I can get an advantage by producing better bikes at a cost of £110. My competitors will then retaliate with a yet better bike that costs £120 to make. This process will continue until we are all making bikes at a cost of £200, and none of us is better off than when they cost £100. To keep the benefits of our minimum price, we also need to restrict the quality of the bikes on sale: we need maximum standards.

Trade unionists and employment regulators are devoted to keeping the price of labour higher than its market value. So they must also stop the suppliers of labour from competing on quality. The endeavour is corrupt in principle – indeed, it would be illegal if the product were anything except labour – and futile in practice. The legislation they favour does not eliminate competition between workers; it simply benefits some at the expense of others.

I recently managed a team of two consultants. They were of roughly equal value. John was brighter but Don worked harder, often violating the Working Time Directive. If I had stopped him, who would have benefited? Not Don. He would have been robbed of his ability to compete with John, and his chance of promotion would have been reduced. A ban on hard work benefits not those who work “too hard” but those with other qualities to offer. It rigs the competition in their favour.

It is impossible to eliminate competition between the suppliers of labour. Rule it out in one respect, such as effort, and it will merely shift to something else, such as talent. Rule it out in all economically relevant respects – allow no price or quality competition – and it will shift onto irrelevant preferences of the employer. A bigot might employ foreigners if they came at a discount. But why would he otherwise? Immigrants do better in America than in France, not because Americans are less racist, but because their labour market is less regulated.

Labour laws are intended to protect employees from employers. But no such protection is needed. Feudalism ended long ago, and the labour market is not a monopsony (a market with only one buyer). No one is forced into any particular job. Indeed, unemployment benefits mean that no one need work at all. Labour laws merely distort the allocation of labour and arbitrarily bestow costs and benefits across the population. They should not be interpreted more stringently; they should be repealed.