Hugo Sinzheimer—The Father of German Labour Law

Abstract

would be Professor Sinzheimer's hundredth birthday.The first point of contact of the Israel lawyer with his work is the collective labour agreement.For by speaking as a matter of course of its "normative function" we adopt a term coined by him, and even more, an insight into the nature of a modern legal institute won by him before the first World War.Contracts in favour of third parties had been known in Germany since the Middle Ages and their force and nature had been explored and explained; but here also duties were imposed on employers and workers who, though members of the parties to the agreement, were not themselves parties to it, and such duties were actually complied with and (in Germany since 1910) enforced.In his two volume book, Der korporative Arbeitsnormenvertrag (1907-8) (The Collective Labour Agreement) Sinzheimer was the first to enquire into the structure of these agreements.Later, in his work Ein Arbeitstarifgesetz-die Idee der sozialen Selbstbestimmung im Recht (1916) (A Collective Labour Agreement-The Idea of Social Self-Determination in Law) containing a complete bill of 109 sections, which was never enacted but served as a basis for subsequent legislation, he was the first to draft a law regulating conditions of their conclusion and validity.Today his teaching on the nature of collective labour agreements is accepted even in countries where the general law of contract is based on different principles than in Germany.In the collective labour agreement (as in other objects of his research) Sinzheimer sought not only a solution to an intriguing new legal problem, but above all, an answer to burning social needs.He was sensitive to the contrast between the monolithic, impersonal State, and corporations of a more personal character, such as trade unions, where members found room for active participation-a contrast not dissimilar to that between the English Mandatory Government of Palestine and the Va'ad Le'umi or the Histadruth with their more progressive self-government activities.Moreover, deriving, as he did, such deep satisfaction from his work as a free advocate, he was disturbed by the mental separation of the manual worker from his trade, from society as it then existed, and from the State.As long as collective agreements were not put on a firm legal basis, the worker could 272

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