Guilds (Urcea)

A guild in Urcea is an association of every firm within an industry which represents the interests of both capital and labor. The guild is designed to ensure a level "playing field" for firms, both extant and newcomers, and also designed to eliminate class antipathy by mutual collaboration and decision-making between capital and labor. The guilds, through the Gildertach, are also responsible for approving trade agreements with foreign countries.

History
The modern guild system developed gradually out of more traditional common in other Occidental countries just prior to the beginning of the. In Urcea, guilds represented the power of the privilegiata during the early renaissance period. They became a cornerstone of what could be called "proto-economic policymaking", becoming responsible for being a direct intermediary between the Julian Palace and the economy with the establishment of the Gildertach in 1407. During the Great Confessional War, as major demographic and economic disruption struck Urcea and the rest of the Holy Levantine Empire, the Kings of Urcea began to gradually regulate the guilds. Leo II made major reforms to the guilds in order to curb anti-competitive behavior, requiring them to admit new firms if they paid an up-front fee. Reforms continued throughout the with the introduction of a formal Guild Law in 1640. Throughout this period, the Guilds were confronted with various reforms which changed their scope and goals from protecting against domestic competition to protecting against foreign competition. The last major reform to Guilds and the Guild Law came in 1816 when King Niall V invested the Gildertach with oversight of trade negotiations and agreements, signaling the completion of their change in focus. In the midst of the Third Caroline War and at the urging of Aedanicus VIII, Guilds voted to give labor a full representation in 1847, replacing a constellation of various local policies regarding labor's representation. Most guilds adopted the modern hierarchical structure during the Red Interregnum, reforming into a simple, uniform guild governance structure.

Function
Guilds serve as the primary self-regulator of labor conditions and labor law within Urcea, including the establishment of workplace conditions, wages, and other standards related to labor. Each guild provides for the basic workplace conditions within its industry, establishes a minimum wage and working hours, and establish all other standards necessary for a safe and productive work environment. The guilds also determine the number of second class holidays its members may take, as well as choosing which third class holidays its members will take. A critical responsibility of the guild is to provide for arbitration between its members, typically a labor union and employer of the same business. Guilds also provide resources to its members from both labor and capital on conflict resolution. Many guilds provide for pooled benefit programs for its members, with all guilds providing for retirement programs and some guilds providing private health insurance. Guilds were the largest provider of health insurance in Urcea before the establishment of the King's Health Aid program.

Structure
Each guild has a national, provincial, and local structure. On the national level, each guild is governed by their National Guild Authority, which of comprised of a "Gilder Assembly" which is made up of elected representatives of vested members, and the "Governing Board", which holds some executive decision-making power within the Guild. The Gilder Assembly's members are elected from each province by each province's vested members and seats are apportioned based on how many vested members there are per province. In the Guild Law, no distinction is made among Urcea's three kinds of subdivisions and are all referred to as "provinces". According to the Guild Law, each province must send an equal number of members representing capital and labor to the Gilder Assembly, and under the Guild Law these two groups form a "Labor Caucus" and a "Capital Caucus" respectively within the Gilder Assembly. Elections are typically held annually, with most vested members voting either at their labor meeting, their chamber of commerce meeting, or at the workplace. In addition to being the overall governing body of a guild, each guild's Gilder Assembly is responsible for appointing individuals to serve on Provincial Investiture Boards. The Governing Board of the guild nominates individuals to serve at the Provincial Investiture Board, in consultation with each caucus, and the Gilder Assembly is responsible for confirming the nominees. The Gilder Assembly is also responsible for electing members of the Gildertach, which serve at the pleasure of the Guild. These members are typically chosen from among the Assembly's own membership, with five members representing each guild.

Provincial Investiture Boards are not administrative bodies but are primarily responsible for maintaining the process of investiture happens at the local level, but since the late 1980s the Provincial Investiture Board is increasingly responsible for being a resource on guild law and various guild developments, working as an intermediary between the National Guild Authority and local labor unions and chambers of commerce. Like the Gilder Assembly, Provincial Investiture Boards are made up by equal representation of labor and capital within their province, with membership varying based on the number of vested members within the province in the guild. The Provincial Boards have two direct tasks deputed them by the Guild Law, the first of which is to oversee and ensure the ethical working of the Diocesan Investiture Boards, holding regular audits of their business and supervising their general proceedings. Secondly, the Provincial Investiture Board is responsible for appointing the members of Diocesan Investiture Boards based on the nomination of vested members within the province. Any vested guild member can nominate an individual to fill a vacancy on a Diocesan Investiture Board, and the Provincial Investiture Board is responsible for consideration and approval of these nominations. Members of the Provincial Investiture Board can serve one ten year term on the Board which may not be renewed following the end of their term.

Diocesan Investiture Boards are solely responsible for creating vested members of guilds, and it is their primary responsibility. The Diocesan Investiture Boards range widely in size, with the smallest rural dioceses having as few as four members with the largest - the Urceopolis Metropolitan Investiture Board - having two hundred members, larger than most Provincial Investiture Boards. Members of the Diocesan Investiture Boards serve at the pleasure of the Provincial Boards and members may be removed at any time. Any business firm or labor union - including local or workplace-specific segments of unions - within a diocese may nominate one of their own members to become a vested guild member. The Guild Law does not specify how many members a Diocese may invest per year, but precedent typically dictates that each firm or union may only nominate one of their own members per year to be invested except in localities with guild communes, where a larger proportion of guild members are invested. Diocesan Investiture Boards may, in some circumstances, also resolve disputes between employers and employees or disputes between different firms. Like the other parts of guilds, the Diocesan Boards are made up of an equal number of representatives of labor and capital.

Membership
Membership in guilds has two tiers, called "vested" and "national", with the former having special decision-making authority and the latter being a regular guild member.

Guild governance
Guilds are primarily self-governing based on the guidelines set forth by the Guild Law, a part of the Consolidated Laws of HMCM's Kingdom and State, and guided by the Office for Guild and Workforce Affairs within the Ministry of Commerce. Gilder Assemblies retain the power to enforce arbitration between businesses and unions, to set terms for arbitration, and to compel each side to come to the negotiating table, where representatives of the guild's governing board serve in an arbitration capacity. Guilds do not have full jurisdiction over their own membership, which is reserved for the Ministry of Commerce in order to protect against anti-competitive behavior. The Office for Guild and Workforce Affairs is responsible for ensuring guilds do not engage in anti-competitive behavior, monitoring guild activities and decision-making to proactively protect against discrimination against new firms by internal guild policies, both in the general sense but also in the case of specific new firms. While most decisions pertinent to the Guilds are decided by their respective Gilder Assemblies or clearly prescribed in the Guild Law, the Office is responsible for managing the relationship between the guilds and the Government of Urcea as well as other issues related to compliance. The Office is responsible for assigning firms to the guild appropriate for this industry. Specifically, when a new business is started, the Office will conduct an investigation to determine which guild the business will be placed in and if the business could fit in two or more guilds, it gives it the discretion to choose which guild the firm will join provided that the Office does not discern that doing so would irreparably harm the guild of choice. The Office is also responsible for enforcing the binding decisions of guilds on its members when the guild's internal enforcement efforts to do so have failed. These enforcements typically take the form of non-compliant firms or sections of workers still striking despite an internal guild decision ending such incidents. The Office works with the Ministry of Justice to issue requests for compliance, and failures to comply are referred for judicial action by the Office. The Office is also responsible for mediating disputes between separate guilds.

Guild Law
The Guild Law is a comprehensive set of statutes established by the Gildertach for the regulation of guilds. It is responsible for establishing the uniform governing structure guilds adopt, the typical guidelines of binding arbitration and labor determinations, prohibits anti-competitive activities, includes definitions and responsibilities for vested membership, and all other provisions necessary to enforce the guild system within the country. It also provides for the form, function, and procedure of the Gildertach.