European Labour Law explores how individual European national legal systems, in symbiosis with the European Union, produce a transnational labour law system that is distinct and genuinely European in character. Professor Brian Bercusson describes the evolution of this system, its national, transnational and global contexts and its institutional and substantive structures. The collective industrial-relations dimension of employment is examined, and the labour law of the EU as manifested in, for example, European works councils is analysed. Important subjects which have traditionally received little attention in some European labour law systems are covered, for example, the fragmentation of the workforce into atypical forms of employment. Attention is also given to the enforcement of European labour law through administrative or judicial mechanisms and the European social dialogue at intersectoral and sectoral levels. This new edition has been extensively updated, as the EU's influence on this area of social policy continues to grow.
Section I: Labour Law and Europe; Part I. European Labour Law: 1. European labour law and the social dimension of the European Union; 2. EU labour law and the UK; 3. The conceptualization of European labour law; Part II. History and Strategies of European Labour Law: 4. Shifting strategies 1951-1986: ECSC, EEC, harmonisation, financial instruments, qualified majority voting; 5. The strategy of European social dialogue; 6. The European Employment Strategy, the open method of coordination and the 'Lisbon Strategy'; 7. The strategy of fundamental rights: the EU Charter of Nice 2000 and a 'constitutional' strategy; Section II: The Structure of European Labour Law; Part III. Labour Law and the European Social Model: 8. The institutional architecture of the European social model; 9. A framework of principles and fundamental rights for European collective labour law; 10. A framework of principles and fundamental rights for European individual employment law; 11. The European Court of Justice, the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the European social model; Part IV. Enforcement of European Labour Law: 12. General principles of enforcement of European labour law; 13. Administrative enforcement of European labour law; 14. Implementation and enforcement of European labour law and employment policy through the social partners at national and EU levels; 15. Individual judicial enforcement of European labour law; 16. Euro-litigation: collective judicial enforcement of European labour law; Part V. The European Social Dialogue: 17. The European social dialogue: from dynamism to benign neglect 1993-2008; 18. External and internal scrutiny of the democratic legitimacy of the European social dialogue; 19. Threats and challenges to and the future of the European social dialogue; Section III: The Futures of European Labour Law; Part VI. Agendas and Visions of European Labour Law: 20. The futures of European labour law: (1) The Commission's agenda - 'modernisation'; 21. The futures of European labour law: (2) The European Court's agenda and ordre communautaire social; 22. The futures of European labour law: (3) The agenda of the Member States and of the European Parliament - the Lisbon Treaty and after.
