Will the Circle be Unbroken? Reconciling Economic Freedoms and Labour Rights in the EU

Following years of seemingly perpetual crisis and flux, the focus across Europe is moving increasingly to what EU social and economic life will look like ‘post-crisis’. The resilience of the EU model will depend, of course, on economic recovery, but also on the manner in which social and labour rights are accommodated, and vindicated, within the processes of economic integration. Crucial here will be the institutions of labour market regulation, and the legal, and extra-legal, processes and phenomena that shape these.

This paper considers, first, the relationship between labour law, the labour market and social competition, and the limits of labour law as a corrective mechanism to the liberalisation of markets at the European and global levels.

Secondly, the paper looks at the tie between labour law and human dignity and the conceptual shift from viewing labour as a commodity to allowing the worker to obtain the status of citizen within the enterprise. The role of human rights in the development of labour law will be considered in relation to this theme.

Thirdly, the relationship between labour law, market law and (social) competition law is examined; the paper looks at issues concerned with the spread of market (and contract) law and the dominant philosophy of entrepreneurial freedom.

Finally, the paper considers the risk of a renewed contestation of the dignity of working people. In relation to this theme, it cautions against a model where national systems of social adjustment must compete amongst themselves.