Abstract
This writer makes the following comments on the methodology in studying labor law in today's Japan as the fruits from his studies in labor laws and labor relations in European countries as well as in Japan.
(1) The severe restrictions, e. g. statutory prohibitions against strike by the civil servant, and the strong opposing movement from the employee's side caused by those restrictions have increased the number of labor litigations and accumulated case law year after year. Sociology of law is expected to contribute to establish the systematical theory of labor law through the sociological analysis on the labor relations presented in the cases.
(2) The study of labor law should start from clarifying the unfavorable or even offensive nature of modern civil law against employees in order to establish the systematical theory of the employee's right. The function of the goodlooking principle of ‘public welfare’ is one of the examples to be analysed. For this reason it is indispensable for the study to request aid from related social sciences, e. g. science of social policy, history of labor movements, science of labor hygiene, social psychology, etc.
(3) The sociological approach should be applicable to the Japanese Constitutional situations, because the Constitution declares fundamental principles which support the employees' rights. In such an approach the comparative study of the labor organizations and the employees' sense of their rights in more developed countries can not fail to have a beneficial effect.
(4) The sources of labor law not only are confined to the statutes and the cases, but also contain the collective agreements, the rules of employment and so on, which are to be called ‘living’ labor law. The sociological study of the real situations of labor relations and labor organizations is also needed for systematizing the employees' rights existing in the ‘living’ labor law in various forms.
