5.3.1  Organisational Rules

(This is an archived extract from the book Patterns of Power: Edition 2)

A person joining an organisation, such as a club or a workplace, is implicitly accepting the rules that apply to all its members.  Whilst it is sometimes possible to negotiate changes to these rules, new members cannot assume that they will be able to do this.  Some degree of negotiability is likely, though, because organisations wish to attract new members – and people are free to leave if they want to.

These organisational rules can be considered as either outside the scope of, or supplementary to, national law and its subsidiary variations.  Sometimes, for example in the case of company rules, their purpose may be to provide a detailed interpretation of national law so that employees know what is permitted in a specific workplace context. 

Organisational rules cannot be allowed to conflict with national law.  People's rights are therefore protected – they have the right of appeal to the national legal system to overturn unfair rules.

© PatternsofPower.org, 2014