THE BAIS HAVAAD'S PARSHA PERSPECTIVES Parshas Acharei Mos-Kedoshim:Our Duties Versus Their Rights By: Rav Yehonoson Dovid Hool

Throughout history, the relationship between employer and employee has been fraught with tension and disagreement. Workers have always attempted to claim various rights in their pursuit of better terms of employment. An early example was the Peasants’ Revolt in medieval Britain, when laborers demanded better wages and working conditions. With the advent of the Industrial Revolution in the early nineteenth century, the demands of workers for better conditions, the right to organize, and the counter demands of employers to restrict the powers of workers’ many organizations and to keep labor costs low gave rise to the introduction of labor law. Modern labor law is the body of laws, administrative rulings, and precedents which address the legal rights of, and restrictions on, working people and their organizations. The debate however is essentially framed in terms of workers’ rights, and the contrasting rights of the management.