Principled labour law: U.S. labour law through a Latin American method, by Sergio Gamonal C. and César F. Rosado Marzán

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ilr.12177
• Date: 01 June 2020
• Published date: 01 June 2020
• Author: Pablo ARELLANO ORTIZ

International Labour Review, Vol. 159 (2020), No. 2

Book reviews

Copyright © International Labour Organization 2020

Journal compilation and translation © International Labour Organization 2020

Principled labour law: U.S. labour law through a Latin American method,

by Sergio Gamonal C. and César F. Rosado Marzán. New York, NY, Oxford University

Press, 2019. xiii + 186pp. ISBN 978-0-19-005266-9.

Capturing a reader’s attention from the rst page of a book and holding it until the last

is a prodigious achievement nowadays. We are bombarded with so much informa-

tion that it is not easy to extract the kernels of relevance from the surrounding noise.

This book possesses these forgotten qualities. It begins by using a quote from Alice’s

Adventures in Wonderland to draw us into a highly complex subject, before taking us

to the imaginary world of Gotham, as an analogy for today’s labour market that can

be applied to many legal systems worldwide.

In this way, although they restrict the scope of their study to the legislation of the

United States, Sergio Gamonal and César Rosado position themselves within a global

and comparative context by taking the principles of labour law as their vantage point.

The authors recognize that their methodology is not new, having been developed in

the 1960s and 1970s by a group of Latin American authors led by the Uruguayan Amé-

rico Plá Rodríguez. Principles, as Plá himself indicates, provide “guidelines inform-

ing certain standards and, directly or indirectly, inspiring a series of solutions, thus

qualifying them to promote and channel the adoption of new standards, guide the in-

terpretation of those already in existence and resolve issues in unregulated areas”.1

Such principles would, consequently, provide the inspiration for the foundations of

the standards and core ideas of labour law.2 The reader should, however, not confuse

this particular focus with debates on principles and rules, on the limits of labour

law, or – most recently – on the latter’s potential to provide actionable proposals.

The authors thus apply a pre-existing methodology, considering the basic purpose

of labour law to be that of protection, to the legal culture of the United States, which has

rarely been studied through such a lens. In my opinion, this provides a unique analyt-

ical comparative study that calls for an added layer of depth in research on labour law.

Having captured the reader’s attention and shifted their conceptual perspective

away from the Common Law, the authors proceed to study both the legislation of the

United States and its institutions in the light of the four classic principles of labour law

– protection, primacy of reality, nonwaiver and continuity of the employment rela-

tionship – devoting a chapter to each.3 Their analysis is not limited to theory but also

reviews recent case law (e.g. the Janus case), and the role of the Fair Labor Standards

Act (FLSA), the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and the 13th Amendment of the

1 A. Plá Rodríguez: Los principios del derecho del trabajo, in H. Barretto Ghione (ed.): Colección Clásicos

Jurídicos Uruguayos. Fourth edition. Montevideo, Fundación de Cultura Universitaria, 2015, p.34.

2 P. Arellano Ortiz and J. Benfeld Escobar: “Reexiones sobre el principio de protección al trabajador

y su inuencia en el ámbito sustantivo y procesal del derecho laboral: Otra mirada al caso Kronos”, in Revista

Chilena de Derecho y Tecnología, Vol.6, No.2, 2017, pp. 3–24 (p.9).

3 It is worth noting that other Latin American authors have included other principles, such as dis-

crimination and freedom of association. On this subject, see A. Plá Rodríguez: Los principios del derecho del

trabajo, referenced in footnote 1.