Bulletin of Comparative Labour Relations Volume 108 The progressive expansion of the phenomenon of posting of workers – the practice whereby a worker is sent for a limited period of time to another Member State in order to provide a service – is a formidable bone of contention in the conflict between a fully integrated internal market economy and Member States’ aims to protect domestic social standards. This book challenges the recently adopted Directive (EU) 957/2018, which came into effect in July 2020, by examining the relevant EU regulatory framework and investigating the actual quantitative dimension of the posting phenomenon and its real impact on the EU labour market. In the process, the author exposes a serious misalignment of the legal framework provided for by the new Directive with the EU values and principles of equality, solidarity and fair competition. Drawing on a wide variety of sources – including Court of Justice case law, Advocate Generals’ opinions, Eurostat data, Commission documents and reports, and academic literature – the author provides in-depth analyses of such elements of the problem as the following: proper definition of the concepts of ‘posting’ and ‘posted worker’ in EU law; host country’s discretion in relation to the part of domestic regulation it can impose on posted employees; misconceived clash between social rights and economic freedoms; coordination of national social security systems; proliferation of unlawful and fraudulent practices; ‘regime shopping’ and exploitation of existing regulatory loopholes; misleading association of posting with issues of ‘social dumping’ and ‘unfair competition’; orientation of political influence during the drafting process of relevant EU legislation; expected controversial economic impact of Directive (EU) 957/2018; concrete realisation of the EU values and principles of equality, solidarity and fair competition; and definition and pursuit of a ‘European social model’. Normative arguments developed in the course of the analysis put forward viable recommendations for future improvements in the field. The Union’s commitment to the development of a ‘European social model’ cannot avoid taking into account the matters of equality, solidarity and fair competition. In this sense, given the increasing prominence of the free movement of services in shaping a European labour market characterised by an ever-growing degree of mobility, this book’s analysis of the phenomenon of posting of workers may serve as a litmus test of political and legislative action at EU level. In its dual analytic and normative aspect, the book takes a giant step towards future discussions and developments in the area of intra-EU labour mobility. It will be welcomed by legal practitioners in labour and social security law and industrial relations, legal scholars, EU institutions and agencies, businesses and trade unions.

This book explores how posting is changing industrial relations systems in several European countries from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. It looks at how opportunities to set up shell-companies and engage in unregulated transnational recruitment made a Europe-wide industry out of avoiding regulation and cheating workers.

This book explores the complicated relationship between the EU legal framework for posting of workers and collective labor law. It examines this topic from the perspective of EU law and of international labor law. In doing so, the book builds upon a solid interdisciplinary foundation, which looks at sociological and economic aspects of the posting phenomenon, also taking into account issues related to industrial relations. However, the immediate focus is on the creation and evolution of the said EU legal framework. Hence, the book provides an in-depth analysis of the drafting process of the Posting of Workers Directive (96/71), as well as an exhaustive examination of the case law of the Court of Justice of the EU dealing with posting of workers. This evolving legal framework is subsequently considered in its broader context, with two tensions identified. On the one hand, the book investigates the growing conflict between the EU framework for posting of workers and the international protection of social rights. It argues that, with regards to the relationship at stake, the EU is presently violating the standards set by the Council of Europe and by the International Labor Organization. On the other hand, the book critically considers the impact of the trend towards decentralization of collective bargaining on the application of collective agreements to posted workers. In particular, it analyzes the so-called "New Economic Governance" of the EU, and its role in fostering such a trend. The book outlines the far-reaching implications of the lack of coherence between the action of the EU institutions involved in the "New Economic Governance" and the case law of the Court of Justice dealing with posting of workers. (Series: Social Europe - Vol. 33) [Subject: European Law, Labor Law, International Law, Comparative Law]

How the European Union handles posted workers is a growing issue for a region with borders that really are just lines on a map. A 2008 story, dissected in Ines Wagner’s Workers without Borders, about the troubling working conditions of migrant meat and construction workers, exposed a distressing dichotomy: how could a country with such strong employers’ associations and trade unions allow for the establishment and maintenance of such a precarious labor market segment? Wagner introduces an overlooked piece of the puzzle: re-regulatory politics at the workplace level. She interrogates the position of the posted worker in contemporary European labour markets and the implications of and regulations for this position in industrial relations, social policy and justice in Europe. Workers without Borders concentrates on how local actors implement European rules and opportunities to analyze the balance of power induced by the EU around policy issues. Wagner examines the particularities of posted worker dynamics at the workplace level, in German meatpacking facilities and on construction sites, to reveal the problems and promises of European Union governance as regulating social justice. Using a bottom-up approach through in-depth interviews with posted migrant workers and administrators involved in the posting process, Workers without Borders shows that strong labor-market regulation via independent collective bargaining institutions at the workplace level is crucial to effective labor rights in marginal workplaces. Wagner identifies structures of access and denial to labor rights for temporary intra-EU migrant workers and the problems contained within this system for the EU more broadly.

The concept of the employer has been surprisingly ignored in employment and corporate law, leaving protective norms unable to grapple with modern work arrangements. This book scrutinises the received concept of a unitary employer providing a functional reconceptualization as a framework for future arguments and coherent judicial decision-making.

In What Happened to Equality? The Construction of the Right to Equal Treatment of Third-Country Nationals in European Union Law on Labour Migration, Friðriksdóttir examines five European Union Directives on labour migration that were adopted based on a sectoral approach to labour migration management. An account of the negotiations between the Commission, the Council and the Parliament on the five Directives reveals how access to territory and the labour market, the right to equal treatment and the right to family reunification were constructed for the different groups of labour migrants and how differentiation between groups of migrants, and discrimination against migrants compared with nationals which contravenes international and European human rights frameworks and international labour law, is institutionalized.

This expert-led analysis smartly examines the issues of posted workers in 12 European countries and the impact of the EU Posting Directive that was established in the 1990s to handle rules regarding workers rights. The cross-border provision of services with posted workers is an integral part of the economic freedoms in the European Union internal market. In the best case, this provision is a logical part of a genuine division of labor on a European scale between contractors and specialized subcontractors. In the worst case, the cross-border provision of services can be falsely used as a method to recruit cheap temporary labor. Providing special attention to the experiences of compliance authorities, labor inspectors, and other controlling bodies, this practical evaluation reveals that the use of the posting mechanism ranges from decent long-established partnerships between contracting partners to completely fake practices of labor-only recruitment. "