Contradictions and European Futures: How and Why Labor Law Matters

Labor Law is the location of several contradictory tendencies and dynamics that strongly influence the futures that can be envisioned and advanced within Europe.  The European Union’s complex multilevel framework for regulating labor rights is increasingly characterized by contradictions both in basic legal principles and in the relations among different levels and actors. These contradictions impinge upon the application of austerity programs and the launching of national reforms in the legal framing of labor markets but at the same time these contradictions also constrain the pursuit of a variety of other policy goals – thereby shaping the futures that actors can imagine for Europe.   Among these contradictions is the tension between the soft law Employment Strategies 2020 encouraging  green jobs and hard law  policies that have reduced green strategies within national employment policies: the contradictions between the sentences of the European Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Justice;  the increase of legal provisions encouraging precarious work alongside EU strategies focused on exactly the reverse objective and the contradictory frame provided for actors at the European Union level on the one hand recognizing social dialogue and coordination in collective bargaining and on the other hand the lack of dialogue at the national level in initiatives to reform labor law regulation.  These contradictions – including the overarching tension in EU Law between the overriding defense of commercial competition and the defense of social rights and goals – offer a foundation for debates on the future(s) of the European Union.