Regulating labor rights of contracted-out employees and the welfare-labor regulatory state

Recent decades have seen changes in the governance of the welfare state and the labor market, following trends of privatization and contracting out in public organizations. Contracted-out workers, some of which are weak categories working in disadvantaged employment modes, have been usually considered non-employees, and industrial action on their part against the public authority, or attempts to be included in collective agreements were traditionally captured as unlawful. Contracted-out employees also traditionally were not entitled to employment rights such as minimum wages. The new reality of post Fordism along with the development of precarious and casual employment of categories of contracted - employees has created a need to explore the scope of regulation regarding labor rights of these semi-public workers. Drawing on the intersection of the regulatory state and the welfare state within the prism of the labor market, the paper introduces the welfare labor regulatory state, in which regulation is used as a tool in regulating collective labor rights. The article presents different approaches to the regulation of collective rights of contracted- out workers: The liberal labor regulatory state and the welfare labor regulatory state and explores their application in Israel and other countries. Whereas the former tends to enhance free competition goals, the latter enables collective bargaining and strike and recognition of labor rights of contracted-out employees. Keywords: liberal labor regulatory state; welfare labor regulatory state; contracted-out employees