| Abstract [eng] |
The European Communiy was, and still is, to a large extent, concerned with the economic aim of creating a common market. At the time of the establishment of the Community, any social benefit was merely an advantageous consequence of the desire to avoid distortions of competition. Therefore it is not surprising that the Treaty of the European Community itself hardly contains any genuine fundamental labour right which the Community institutions and Mamber States should respect when exercising their powers. The fact that the Community has gradually transformed itself into an organization that has labour rights high on its agenda is for a major part due to the proactive stance of the Court of Justice. Ever since 1969 it has been clear from the Courts’ case-law that fundamental human rights in general are part of the general principles of Community law and protected by the Court. The Court has also recognized certain labour rights as fundamental human rights. In certain cases the Court of Justice went further than merely recognizing fundmental labour rights as a “touchstone”. Sometimes the Court engages in the creation of detailed actively enforceable labour rights. The Court has often provided detailed guidelines for a genuine enforcement of certain labour rights. I recall, for instance, the principle of equal pay for equal work and work of equal value, the rights to a wide range of social benefits for migrant workers, the freedom of associations and the freedom to choose an occupation and the right to engage in work. Thus the aim of the research work is to give a topical and exemplary overview of the labour rights that the European Court of Justice has determined and introduced into the Community legal order. Apart from fostering labour rights through the impact of Community law on the Member States’ social policies, the Court of Justice has also played a major role in the actual creation of European labour rights. This research work is also intended to show that most of the labour rights and freedoms guaranteed in the International conventions of social rights and the Charter of Fundamental rights of the European Union have already been recognized by the Court of Justice. However, the Charter of Fundamental rights of the European Union has made a number of labour rights more visible. In doing so, it will undoubtedly contribute to the invocability of those rights by the subjects of the European Union legal order. The Charter allows the Court of Justice to continue to play the socially activist role it has often played throughout the past years. Such a proactive role of the Court in determination of labour rights has once again reaffirmed that respect to human rights, including labour rights, is of an exceptional importance in the European Union scale of values. |
