Collective Labor Rights and the European Social Model

This article explores the tension between competing discourses within the European Union, as this regional trading bloc seeks to capture further gains from market integration, whilst simultaneously attempting to soften the social impact of regional competition within its borders. This article analyzes the difficulty of maintaining the European social model, or a revised version of it, in the context of increased market integration. Through a close reading of two cases decided by the European Court of Justice in 2007, the article interrogates the extent to which discourses on social rights at the EU level can be made sufficiently robust to ensure the application of international or national labor standards as a buttress against increasingly mobile capital, in order to prevent "social dumping." It concludes, however, that the terms on which the foundational texts of the EU integration project operate - elevating "market" rights to equal, fundamental, status with social and labor rights - means that the exercise of social rights such as the right to strike is ultimately contingent on their compatibility with market integration

Race and Colonialism in the Construction of Labour Markets and Precarity

This article explores the interconnections and continuities between racial inequalities in the contemporary labour market and the legacies of colonialism and racial distinctions woven into the evolution of market economy. It argues that race is embedded in the legal form by which labour is regulated. In its focus on the legal relations between individual subjects, namely, the contract of employment, the dominant legal form for governing work relations, the standard employment relationship, erases from view the broader social and economic structures within which the bilateral relationship exists—that is, the unpaid work of social reproduction and the colonial extraction which make paid work possible. The article identifies a number of ways in which race, racism and the legacies of colonialism are implicated in the evolution of market economy and latterly in the construction of the postwar welfare state and contemporary labour market institutions. First, in the racial capitalism of slavery. Second, in the colonial extraction and commodification of labour power from the global South for the benefit of markets in the global North. Third, in relation to migrant labour and racialised segmentation of the labour market

Theorising the relationship between social law and markets in regional integration projects

This article explores regional integration projects in the global South and constraints upon them. Its focus is on the use of economic sociology of law as a methodological approach through which to rethink the relationship between law, markets and state – and to explore how these interact in the context of one regionalisation project (the European Union) as well as interrogating whether economic sociology can similarly cast light on another regionalisation project (the African Union). The article examines the role of the ‘social state’ and of labour market institutions as part of an array of adjustment mechanisms responding to the liberalisation of trade and the opening of national borders: to what extent can social law and social rights mediate the operation of markets, and what does this mean when viewed from the perspective of developing as well as industrialised countries

Back at the kitchen table: Reflections on decolonising and internationalising with the Global South socio-legal writing workshops

It has been three years since we held the Feminism, Legality and Knowledge (FLaK) seminar to respond to our developing frustrations and excitement around feminist legal studies and academic publishing. In the wake of our 25th anniversary in 2018, we critically reflect further on our original intention to stock up on decolonising techniques to mix feminism, legality and knowledge whilst building on previous consideration of our self-proclaimed ‘international’ status. These reflections are prompted by editorial board members’ experiences as participants in the Cardiff Law and Global Justice Centre’s British Academy-funded Global South Socio-Legal Writing Workshops in Accra (Ghana), Nairobi (Kenya) and Recife (Brazil) in 2018. Following an explanation of the concerns with academic publishing that have prompted this reflection, we provide a narrative of our experiences in each of the three workshops exploring the lessons learned and their impact on our practice as editors and scholars in feminist legal studies. We finish with a renewal of our commitment to decolonise our minds and practices by continuing to struggle to earn the label ‘international’ for the journal now and in future. A brief introduction to the contents of this issue of FLS follows the reflection

Feminist Reflections on the Scope of Labour Law: Domestic Work, Social Reproduction and Jurisdiction

Drawing on feminist labour law and political economy literature, I argue that it is crucial to interrogate the personal and territorial scope of labour. After discussing the “commodification” of care, global care chains, and body work, I claim that the territorial scope of labour law must be expanded beyond that nation state to include transnational processes. I use the idea of social reproduction both to illustrate and to examine some of the recurring regulatory dilemmas that plague labour markets. I argue that unpaid care and domestic work performed in the household, typically by women, troubles the personal scope of labour law. I use the example of this specific type of personal service relation to illustrate my claim that the jurisdiction of labour law is historical and contingent, rather than conceptual and universal. I conclude by identifying some of the implications of redrawing the territorial and personal scope of labour law in light of feminist understandings of social reproduction

Understanding EU legal integration/disintegration : in search of new perspectives

This report summarises the UACES/ James Madison Trust EUFutures Research Network Launch Workshop entitled 'Understanding legal integration/disintegration: in search of new perspectives'. The event consisted of four panels on 'Interdisciplinary research on EU law', 'Research Methods and EU law', 'Understanding the EU's integration processes' and 'Understanding EU law through soft law, discourse, ideas & beliefs', respectively. The future of EU legal integration is at a significant juncture with the departure of the UK, substantial rule of law challenges, internal and external crises, and an increasingly apathetic multilateral legal order. There is increased recognition amongst EU lawyers, who have historically limited themselves to doctrinal analysis and legal hermeneutics, that methodology plays an essential role in order to understand EU integration and shape its future. The question remains though how to connect interdisciplinary approaches to EU law, policy and politics. How should EU law (as an object) be studied? What are the respective merits of each discipline (political science, sociology, economy, history) in explaining the way EU law is created, applied, used, transformed in the process of EU integration? What is the added value of bringing together different approaches to law? In particular, how can EU law (as an academic discipline) open itself up to the methods of the social sciences and what, in return, can law offer to our understanding of EU studies more widely? In order to answer these questions, EUFutures brings together scholars for this workshop to: reflect on the future methodological direction(s) of EU law and EU integration and consider both how law could open itself up to methodologies from other disciplines, and what legal analysis could offer political, economic and historical approaches

The European Employment Strategy: Labour Market Regulation and New Governance

Labour law and social policy have long provided an arena within which key debates over the depth and pace of European integration have taken place. Increasingly, as the European Union's employment policy has matured, employment and economic policy discourses have come to displace discourses around social policy and social law, a displacement which has occurred in tandem with a shift from legislative harmonisation to the use of ‘soft law’ and governance by means of guidelines. This book charts the evolution of the European Employment Strategy and the new forms of governance to which it has given rise. It offers an interdisciplinary exploration of European social law and employment policy, scrutinising the law and economics of labour market regulation in the European context and responding to the economic critique of traditional notions of social protection. Through a detailed examination of the legal and economic underpinnings of the European Employment Strategy, this book outlines the implications of this strategy for labour law, social protection, and industrial relations within the EU. The book also provides a timely contribution to the growing literature on ‘new governance’ in the EU. This innovative form of governance has the potential to forge a middle course through the regulatory choices facing the EU: the choice over the appropriate level of regulation in the EU, whether national or supranational; that over the legitimate role for the state in regulating or deregulating the labour market; and ultimately, the choice between centralised harmonisation and regulatory competition