CONCEPT
The Common Rule
Webb's principle that all workers in a given trade should work under the same basic conditions — the floor below which conditions cannot fall regardless of competitive pressure, and the foundation of industrial democracy.
The Common Rule is the institutional principle Sidney and Beatrice Webb placed at the center of their theory of industrial democracy: that all workers in a given trade should work under the same minimum wage, the same maximum hours, and the same standards of safety and training. Its logic is structural. Without a common standard, the employer who pays the lowest wages and imposes the worst conditions enjoys a competitive advantage over the employer who treats workers decently, and the resulting race to the bottom drives conditions inexorably downward. The Common Rule does not eliminate competition; it redirects it — from the degradation of labour to the improvement of products, processes, and organization. Its contemporary extension must address cognitive conditions as well as physical ones.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The Webbs documented the effect of the Common Rule across industries: the establishment of a floor did not produce economic stagnation, as its opponents predicted, but a