SOCIAL INVESTMENT AS A TOOL FOR ALIGNING PRIVATE AND PUBLIC INTERESTS IN LABOR LAW

Abstract

This research work attempts to assess the potential of using social investment as a tool for aligning public and private interests, which is especially relevant in the context of the impact of modern global challenges on the sphere of work. Based on such a category as “interest” used by the legislators to characterize the goals and objectives of labor law, the author summarized that in the context of modern global challenges, like never before, it is necessary to align the interests of the parties in the labor relationship, as well as the government for the purpose of mutual support and mutual assistance in solving social issues. Having studied the policy declarations of the United Nations on sustainable development and the International Labor Organization on the future of the sphere of work, the author came to the conclusion that the international trend is to treat the laborer as an investment object, and the Russian Federation is ready to follow this trend. This is evidenced both by the 2020 amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation, which laid the conceptual foundations for the development of a social welfare state as a state of social investment, and by strategic planning documents that outline the social policy. The research work draws attention to the fact that the adopted federal law on public and private partnership provides for private investment objects that can have a positive impact on the sphere of work, however, nowadays it is not focused on social investment in this particular area. Besides, there is a kind of contradiction with the institution of social partnership, traditional for labor law, aimed at the interaction between employees and employers, therefore it seems important to determine whether these types of partnerships should interact with each other when addressing issues of social investment in the sphere of work. The author has also identified the directions in which the development of law on social investments should take place, and demonstrated some of the difficulties that investors face due to the lack of elaboration of this aspect of the labor law.