Solidarity and Conflict: European Social Law in Crisis

Description

The ongoing austerity crisis is being felt in all sectors of EU law, but has had a particularly severe impact on labour law. Silvana Sciarra, a leading judge and scholar of EU employment law, considers how solidarity regimes have been shaken by the crisis. She brings together existing European policies in social and employment law, to enhance synergies and developments in a post-crisis discourse. She looks at reactions of national constitutional courts to austerity measures and of international organizations in re-establishing respect of fundamental workers' rights. Criticizing soft law approaches in employment policies, she favours recourse to binding measures connected with selective financial incentives through European funds. She highlights developments in European sector social dialogue and new horizons of transnational collective bargaining in large multinationals. Taking a positive, practical approach, Sciarra shows how social policies can enhance solidarity and social cohesion, through European financial support.

Silvana Sciarra is a Judge at the Constitutional Court of Italy and was previously a Full Professor of Labour Law and European Social Law at the University of Florence and at the European University Institute, Florence. She is co-editor of Laws against Strikes: The South African Experience in an International and Comparative Perspective (with Rochelle le Roux and Bob Hepple, 2015).

'[The book is] highly recommended for academic legal scholars and EU and national policy makers who would like to gain new innovative insights into the concept of solidarity, at EU law and beyond, as well as understanding of the implications of the relationship between solidarity and conflict in European social law.' Effrosyni Bakirtzi, European Journal of Social Security