Evaluative function of individual contractual regulation of labor relations (on the example of employees observing religious norms)

Abstract

The expansion of the use of remote work, the explosive growth of digital technologies and artificial intelligence algorithms have actualized the problems of determining the nature of employment relations and the limits of individual contractual regulation of labor relations. The authors turn to the functional analysis of individual contractual regulation of labor relations, considering the concept of functions of law, varieties of functions of individual contractual regulation of labor relations. For the analysis, the implementation of the evaluation function of individual contractual regulation through the prism of labor relations with a special category of employees – employees who observe religious norms is chosen. The starting point in the article is the thesis that changes in the conditions and content of work provide for the activation of human resources, in which the natural inequality of workers, their personal qualities significantly affect the quality and dynamics of the labor process itself. Therefore, the demand for equality of opportunities for individuals is joined by the idea of the fairness of attention to the differences by which a person identifies himself. The analysis of the doctrine did not allow theoretically to strictly distinguish the functions of law and the functions of legal regulation. The authors attributed the normalizing and evaluative functions to the functions of individual contractual regulation of labor relations. The evaluation function is associated with the psychological perception by the subjects of the legal relationship of the legal information they receive in the process of individual regulation, and involves the expression of the legal self-identification of subjects of labor law. As part of the evaluation function of individual contractual regulation of labor relations, the authors identified information and educational subfunctions. The complex issue of regulating the form of expression of will by the subjects of such regulation is considered by the authors in the context of information subfunction using the example of different negotiation scenarios of an employee who observes religious norms. In addition, in terms of information, it is important for the subjects of individual contractual regulation to understand the possibilities of changing the employment relationship to ensure its mobility and flexibility, which is dictated by the conditions of a market economy. As for the educational subfunction, it forms the subject's attitude to the surrounding world, to the processes taking place in it, manifesting itself in the person's perception of legal attitudes and in the participants in the social labor process gaining experience in creating a certain labor law and order in the field of labor.

Keywords:

employment contract, functions of law, legal regulation of labor, individualization, working conditions, contractual regulation, religious employee