The subject of the research is an unspoken social contract that has actually formed in Russian society between an employee and an employer as social groups. The aim of the work is to consider the prerequisites for the formation of a social contract in the field of hired labor, to identify its content and basic elements, to study its factual manifestations, to compile characteristics as a social phenomenon, to analyze the socio-economic consequences of its existence, to develop means of counteracting the negative aspects of the social contract. The research methodology involves the involvement of an intersectoral apparatus at the border of sociology and jurisprudence. The work was carried out in line with the sociology of law and represents an attempt to implement the sociological school of labor law and, more broadly, the developments in the anthropology of labor law. A consequence of the significant sociological emphasis was the specificity of the materials of a journalistic and sociological nature used in the article. The existence of the agreement is recorded according to the statistical data of state bodies, sociological organizations, and research by specialists. As a result of the study, it was concluded that the content of the social contract is characterized by reciprocal informal obligations of the parties: the employer provides work and pays wages, violating labor law in their economic interests; the employee performs work, obeys the will of the employer and puts up with violations of labor legislation refusing to protect labor rights. The fulfillment of obligations on the part of the employee is forced, due to psychological, informational, state-administrative, social, economic reasons. The convention is terminated only in the event of a radical violation of the employee’s interests — with prolonged non-payment of wages, illegal dismissal. The pattern is not absolute, but large enough to be presented as a national phenomenon. The consequence of the existence of this agreement is the precarization of labor relations in Russia, the exclusion of millions of workers from the scope of labor law norms, the undermining of the functionality of the industry norms, the destabilization and dehumanization of social life, the erosion of legal consciousness, and damage to the national economy. The means of counteracting the social contract on the refusal of the employee to protect labor rights are active legal education and reorganization of the system of protection of labor rights.
For citation: Demidov N.V. Public contract in the system of labour relations in modern Russia. Law. Journal of the Higher School of Economics. 2021, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 25–48. (In Russ.). DOI: 10.17323/2072-8166.2021.4.25.48