Pushing the debate on Posted Workers beyond the EU’s Status Quo

Abstract

The debate on the posting of workers in the European Union (EU) shows no sign of resolution 15 years after the controversial Laval quartet of judgements by the ECJ. The majority view has it that the judgements gave social dumping the backing of EU law, thus undermining national achievements in the social sphere. From this perspective the 2018 Revised Posted Workers Directive is a step in the right direction. The critique from the periphery, on the other hand, alleges that what looks like social dumping from the centre amounts to equality of opportunity for workers of the periphery, thus seeing the judgements in a more ambiguous or even positive light. The Revised PWD is here seen as a reassertion of national dominance from the EU’s centre. In this paper I engage with Christodoulidis’s constitutional approach to this complex problem which he develops in The Redress of Law, arguing against his embrace of the majority position in Part 3 of his work while building on his radical democratic proposals from Part 4. From the latter’s perspective, both the majority view as well as the critique from the periphery are to be rejected, since the very opposition between the two options is inimical to workers’ rights in the EU. Radical democratic action is necessary to overcome this impasse, to open the space within which rights and interests of workers from across the Union can be properly protected and advanced.

Keywords

• Posted Workers
• centre/periphery
• social union
• radical democracy