Nothing, Yet Everything New Under the Sun: Subordination, Authority, and Transformations of the Organization Work in a Labor Law Perspective

The paper aims to construct a critique of the thesis of the radical unsuitability of subordination for the constitution of a legal category that underpins labor law and its protections. Such a critique is grounded on the observation that subordinate labor constitutes a specific social phenomenon, characterized by the existence of a relationship of authority between the subject who provides labor (i.e. the employee) and the employer. The power dynamic specific of the relationship between a subordinate employee and the employer depends on a number of factors, including the integration of the employee in an organization of the employer, who maintains a full control of the organization. The subsequent subjection of the employee to a number of manifestations of the employer’s authority makes subordinate labor worthy of a specific legal response that is the one that traditionally has been provided by labor law by means of the legal notion of subordination, as a gateway to accessing certain protections and rights. Furthermore, in its second part, that we might define pars construens, this article aims to support the thesis that an adjusted and renewed notion of subordination that shall look at the new ways of manifestations of the employer’s authority in a working relationship might well cover relations that would not fall under a more traditional notion of subordination, but that are indeed characterized by specific power dynamics between the parties. In this respect, the paper intends to suggest a new key to interpreting and applying the traditional concept of subordination: that is, a renewed understanding of the concept of authority to which the subordinate worker is subject, and thus of the juridical relevance of the manifestations of that authority and of its transformations in new labor organizations. Indeed, the final goal of the present paper is to offer a reflection on the legal issues related to new forms of the employer’s interference, i.e., their power and authority in the worker’s sphere of activity and in the organizational context in which the activity is carried out, as well as a reflection on the effects of new forms of the employer’s authority on the general notion of subordination.