This was covered in part when I talked about this being
set in the future, but there is more to it than what I covered earlier and it's important to understand. Especially if I did not do a good enough job explaining this in my story.
With the rise of certain technologies, labor was being automated faster than new non-automated forms of human labor could be created. It meant that the world's ability to produce goods and provide services continued to increase even as jobs decreased. So while our ability to provide for people increase, the traditional way of distributing the production eroded. Without everyone having paychecks you'd have no way to know how to distribute things to those people since they would not have money to buy them.
So many first world nations created some form of an
Alternative Minimum Income. It is a small amount of money distributed to every adult citizen, allowing them to have food, shelter, and let them decide how they want to spend the rest of it. You could survive but not live well. It was paid for by taxing automated labor and the very wealthy who owned the machines. However, it created enough demand that the countries that tried it saw a net gain to their economy.
So with a job no longer being essential to survive, countries also began relaxing labor laws. They abolished minimum wage requirements and in particular saw the rise of
Payment Delayed Employment. Since a wage was seen as "extra" rather than essential to survival, employers took advantage by offering to pay only at the end of the employment term. These were always outlined in a contract.
Contracts became king. With few laws remaining about terms of employment, contracts were a way for employers and employees to be locked into their agreement without the ability to alter it. This meant that if you promised to work for 6 months, you could not quit 4 months in without the contract having a way to do that. Similarly, an employer could not fire a person without the contract giving them a way. A violation by either party was a criminal act.
An international group formed called the
International Contract Bureau. It was not started by any one government, but the major economies of the world all joined early giving them legitimacy. They are responsible for classifying and securely registering contracts. Most governments now only consider an employment contract binding if it is registered with them.They also have the ability to monitor for compliance and are allowed to do so as a condition of registering a contract.
All contracts have grades and levels that make up their classification.
Grades, ranging from AAA to F, indicate the level of due diligence, confirmation of legitimacy and ability to arbitrate. An AAA contract requires both parties to have lawyers, the contract must be read allowed in full and a member of the ICB needs to be present along with 5 other witnesses, and either party should have access to bring the other to court over supposed violations. An F is essentially the ICB's way of saying they can't be sure this isn't just a kidnapping into slavery with no chance of ever getting out in their life. Most developed nations only accept B grade contracts and above, and most consider using grade D contracts and below to be close to human trafficking.
Levels, ranging from 1-10, indicate what kind of activities are allowable under the contract as well as factoring in the length of the contract's term of service. Level 1 or 2 are basic "typical" jobs like cashier, secretary etc for a short period of time. Level 10 leaves almost no limits on what they can be told to do or how they can be treated.
The punishment for either side violating a contract is to be put into a
Penal Contract indicated with the grade Z. Penal contracts are created to be roughly 2 levels higher than the level of the contract that was violated to create the penal contract. If someone breaks a level 4 contract, they are given a level 6 contract. When contract violations are discovered by the ICB, they are the ones to issue the contract and keep the profit from auctioning off that contract to a third party. Since higher level contracts are more valuable, those with high level regular contracts will be under higher than usual scrutiny as catching a high level contract violation is more profitable. In extreme cases, this also means penal contract may get up to level 11 or 12, which allows for treatment so severe that people are not capable of agreeing to it under a normal contract. That threat means that very very few high level contracts are agreed to and even fewer are willing to violate the contract.
Sexual work has only been allowed in contracts in certain areas and countries. In the US it was decided years ago that line would be that a personal contract could allow for sexual requirements but professional ones could not. The idea being that you could hire
a person or two but not dozens to be used as a source of profit. The thought was that two people should be allowed to agree to whatever they want, but that large brothels would encourage human trafficking and other harmful often illegal things. In late January, around the time of the start of the series, that changed. The Supreme Court ruled that the distinction between personal and professional contracts to be an arbitrary restriction and struck it down. There are by the start of the series no restrictions with regard to sex if the parties are willing to sign up for it.
