Employment Law And The European Convention On Human Rights

The accession by the European Union to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) has opened up new possibilities in terms of the constitutional recognition of fundamental rights in the EU. In the field of employment law it heralds a new procedure for workers and trade unions to challenge EU law against the background of the ECHR. In theoretical terms this means that EU law now goes beyond recognition of fundamental rights as mere general principles of EU law, making the ECHR the 'gold standard' for fundamental (social) rights. This publication of the Transnational Trade Union Rights Working Group focuses on the EU and the interplay between the Strasbourg case law and the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), analysing the relevance of the ECHR for the protection of workers' rights and for the effective enjoyment of civil and political rights in the employment relation. Each chapter is written by a prominent European human rights expert and analyses the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), and also looks at the equivalent international labour standards within the Council of Europe (in particular the (Revised) European Social Charter), the International Labour Organization (ILO) (in particular the fundamental rights conventions) and the UN Covenants (in particular the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights) and the interpretation of these instruments by competent organs. The authors also analyse the ways in which the CJEU has acknowledged the respective ECHR articles as 'general principles' of EU law and asks whether the Lisbon Treaty will also warrant a reassessment of the way it has treated conflicts between these 'general principles' and the so-called 'fundamental freedoms'.

In recent years, the tendency of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) to treat human rights as indivisible and consider cases relevant to employment has contributed significantly to jurisprudence relating to human rights at work in the Council of Europe. This indispensable book is the first to thoroughly survey and analyse recent ECtHR’s cases relevant to employment law. It is based on a deeply informed structural analysis of more than fifty cases considered by the ECtHR during 2017–2021, many of which have not heretofore been considered in the legal literature. The authors examine, in particular, the following topics raised in the jurisprudence of the ECtHR: privacy and surveillance; freedom of thought, conscience and religion; freedom of expression; discrimination; unfair dismissal; forced labour; collective bargaining; and the right to strike. The authors explore the reasoning that led the ECtHR to broaden the scope of Article 8 ECHR, which protects the right to private life, in order to develop new employment rights. They also detail the impact of International Labour Organization (ILO) standards on the Court’s jurisprudence. As a clear and eminently useable guide to the applicability of ECHR for protection of labour rights and human rights at work, this book is of practical value to labour lawyers in spelling out the legal positions of the ECtHR which might support individual and collective labour rights protection in national proceedings. Academics in the field will appreciate the authors’ clarification of the trends of the ECtHR’s reasoning, especially in respect of the right to workplace privacy.

The very existence of an employment relationship places the human rights of a worker at risk. Employers can, and frequently do, exercise their managerial and disciplinary powers in a manner that interferes with the most fundamental rights of the individual worker. Adequate safeguards against such infringements are necessary if individuals are to receive full protection of their rights. This book examines how far the labour laws of England and Wales offer such guarantees, with a particular focus on dismissal law. The chapters reflect on the relationship between employment, labour, and human rights before conducting a detailed and critical analysis of the scope, shape, and application of domestic employment law. The framework for evaluation is drawn from the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, as it develops a principled and tailored approach to how the rights contained in the European Convention on Human Right should be enforced in working relationships. Statutory mechanisms, such as the law of unfair dismissal, and common law causes of action are examined and found to be lacking in their capacity to vindicate and enforce the human rights of workers. This book culminates in the proposal and elaboration upon an innovative solution, the Bill of Rights for Workers, that would draw on the successes of human rights and labour law instruments to render the Convention rights directly enforceable in the relationship between a worker and their employer.

This publication of the Transnational Trade Union Rights Working Group focuses on the EU and the interplay between the Strasbourg case law and the case law of the CJEU, analysing the relevance of the ECHR for the protection of workers' rights and for the effective enjoyment of civil and political rights in the employment relation.

The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union is the most developed and comprehensive legally binding human rights instrument in the social field of the European Union. It is becoming increasingly important and is the first instrument that includes both civil and political rights on one hand and social rights on the other. Despite this, the Court of Justice of the European Union has only rarely dealt with fundamental social rights. In this context, employment rights need to be examined in this new rights framework. Following on from previous volumes setting out links between European labour law and fundamental social rights (as enshrined in relevant UN, ILO and Council of Europe instruments), in this book the ETUI Transnational Trade Union Rights (TTUR) Expert Network examines the justiciability of social rights and critically analyses the effectiveness of those rights embodied in the EU Charter. Thus, this book completes the trilogy of ETUI TTUR books on fundamental social rights at European level following the publication, also by Hart Publishing, of The European Convention of Human Rights and the Employment Relation (2013) and The European Social Charter and the Employment Relation (2017).

In recent years there has been a substantial debate over the interconnection between labour rights and human rights. Consequently, the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) concerning substantive individual labour rights, or ‘rights at work’, is coming to greater prominence at the national level throughout the forty-seven Member States of the Council of Europe. This is the first book in English to provide a thorough analysis of the Court’s most recent case law – cases considered in the period from 1963 to 2016 – on fundamental employment rights such as the right to wages, protection from discrimination and unfair dismissal, the right to occupational safety at work, and civil liberties such as the freedom of association, the freedom of religion and expression, and the right to privacy. Drawing on close scrutiny of 347 cases since 1963, the author traces the evolutionary development of the Court’s positions on labour rights as human rights through case analyses, commentary, and general conclusions in each of several categorical groupings. Recent trends are treated in substantial detail. Among the issues and topics raised are the following: – interrelation of ECtHR case law and national labour rights protection; – benefits for employees of reference to ECtHR case law in national proceedings; – role of International Labour Organization conventions and of the European Social Charter in the Court’s reasoning; – application of balancing and proportionality test in relevant to labour law cases; – public criticism of employer, disclosure of information, and standards of whistle-blowers’ protection; and – positive obligations of the State in the ¬field of occupational safety and health. This book offers the most detailed and considered analysis available of how individual labour rights have been referred to in the human rights jurisprudence of the ECtHR. Given that the Court’s positions have already changed certain aspects of some national labour laws, this peerless volume will prove indispensable for practitioners and scholars monitoring the growing applicability of human rights law in matters of labour and employment, especially in the areas of protection of wages, unjust dismissal, and occupational safety.

This text examines the compatibility of UK employment law with the European Convention on Human Rights and, in particular, the potential impact on three main areas: individual employment law, where the process of bringing a case before the employment tribunal and the terms and conditions of employees working for public bodies may fall foul of Article 6 (The Right to a Fair Trial); collective employment law, where the law relating to trade unions and industrial action is examined, in the light of Article 11 (Freedom of Assembly); and discrimination law, with the requirements of Article 14 (Prohibition of Discrimination) and previous decisions of the European Court of Justice).

This comprehensive guide to the impact of the Human Rights Act on UK employment law addresses the basic concepts of convention law and provides a summary of the key convention rights.