Labor Law In Great Britain And France In the 1980’s: The Unintended Effects Of Legal Reforms On Organized Labor

This paper compares two instances where the political use of law, specifically labor legislation, was used to effect broader social change during the early 1980s. The two cases focused on are the Thatcher administration in Great Britain and the Mitter and government in France. These divergent cases are instructive as much for their similarities as for their differences. Though the two governments had opposite intentions in terms of the role that organized labor would play in their respective societies, each relied on extensive labor law reform as a means to achieve their objectives. The eventual outcomes of these two political experiments were also similar: power of organized labor was undermined in both countries, albeit in the one case intentionally and in the other unintentionally. Overall this comparison provides insight into the problematic nature of state projects, particularly when law is used to achieve specific social and political aims.