I've been thinking in regards to government Ministries and, while there is a Law Ministry, i believe it would be of extreme importance to include a Ministry that protects the rights of the employees of companies that will work in space. Space travel is dangerous and I would imagine working in space on mining operations etc would be more so. The ministry would consider for example what the basic rate of pay would be, danger pay, the minimum safety equipment required for certain positions, minimum leave requirements, maximum working hours, maximum exposure/safe levels of exposure to certain types of radiation. I could go on. I am a labour law specialist in South Africa and while our labour laws are restrictive, I am of the opinion that such rules would be crucial to the safety of workers in space.

I agree sir, I've proposed Leisure & Entertainment as a 12th Ministry.

Maybe Leisure could cover certain things like maximum hours and minimum wage.

On the other hand I wouldn't see how we could go on without laws to protect employees and employers but if that is the 12th ministry then it would mean there wouldn't be Leisure & Entertainment in space and that my friend it doesn't make sense to me.

Let's wait for it, make an official proposal in the Ministry of Administrative Affairs.

Have a nice day,

Should there be legislation that outlines obligations for both parties if a worker is injured? Which brings the bigger question, would there be a government scheme where all employers must register with, pay an appropriate premium into a pool, which gets used like an insurance if there are work place injuries (appropriate capping of premiums and allowances). Or will there some other form of general healthcare everyone can has access too, and pays into more depending on their job type. Or nothing at all, opening this to private. I work in workers compensation in Australia, will be interesting to see how things develop, there may just need very general life principles laid out which apply to all facets of "rights" in all fields of law we have today.

What about employers' rights? They shouldn't be forgotten, either. Small and medium businesses tend to employ the largest concentration of employees, and business owners play a very important role in society. Small and medium businesses will be the bread and butter of our economy. Let's not be too hard on them :)

If you thought that corporations actually employ non-executive people on permanent full-time for more than a year at a time...PFFFFTTTTT HAHAHAHAHA

I agree with everything that has been written so far, and I think it would be a great idea to create some sort of "Asgardian Bill of Rights" that explicitly makes clear what the rights and responsibilities of both workers and employers are.

We could propose a basic rights of employees law that details the Minimums as described above and another that details the responsibilities of both the employer and employee. I don't believe what we are discussing would fall under a leisure time ministry but liesure time would be detailed in the Minimum basic rights of employees. This is a civil matter. The burden of proof should fall under civil also so as to minimize the involvement of lawyers. Balance of probability as opposed to beyond reasonable doubt. The law that deals with the relationship between employer and employee should include the relationship with any unions that may form and operate as well as dispute resolution, amongst many other items. As to the question of a pool of funds to pay for injuries I think that a great idea but one that should be staggered based on the size of the enterprise or number of employees. I agree that Small business should not pay the same as large Corporations. We in SA have a specific injury on duty fund that Companies pay 1% of turnover to and this is where the Money comes from to pay for such injuries. It also has its own act.

I'd love to not recreate the situation we have in most countries where workers have no/limited stake in the business that they spend most of their time serving. This could be avoided by some kind of cooperative structure as in Monodragon, Spain, or workers forming half of the executive board, like in Germany.

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This is a good idea and needs to be furthered discussed, detailed, and implemented. For some time after Asgardia's creation all jobs will be performed by humans. The type of artificial intelligence needed to automate the mining industry does not exist yet and considering those machines will be performing more complex task than spot weilding cars for example. They will need the ability to care for themselves as well as detect and adapt to changes in their environment. There is a possible problem though, since we humans do not currently know what causes a being to become sentient. We should not assume that a heavy reliance on artificially intelligent machines. Will not some day become self aware, for all we know all it takes is for something to become sufficiently intelligent enough to become self aware and none of us can say for certain that will not happen. I can not say for certain that it will either but have to admit that it might. Anyway, the highly automated systems many Asgardians speak of will not exist in Asgardia for some time

Need to post again in this aging but most important thread. There should be as little distinction (if any) between employee and employer, or we can say goodbye right now to an open and democratic Asgardia. 

Please explain. You have made a statement with no supporting details or facts.

LDO

Can we not have personhood of corporations? 

Man, I hope corporations cannot get 'personhood'. That was a stupid idea here in the USA.

FHU

Employers and employees are defacto class differences. If it can be avoided in Asgardia then it should be. 

I think, with time, we can't avoid having "Earth like" job market, thus I like the OP's position, which is also an expert on the matter.
I think @Richard Howell's position is a little utopic, even if not in the short time, but I like it, agree and will support it.