Collective bargaining and self-employed workers: the need for a paradigm shift

Abstract

Policy considerations: • EU competition law imposes limits on the scope of collective labour law, as it precludes self-employed workers from collective bargaining . • There is a rising number of self-employed workers whose livelihood are characterised by increasing precariousness and whose working conditions could be improved by ensuring that collective agreements fall outside the scope of competition law. • The European Commission intends to reform the scope of EU competition law and this could offer an opportunity to define a new regulatory paradigm. • This policy briefs discusses a possible reconfiguration of the coexistence between collective bargaining and competition law. • Access to collective bargaining should ensure that employing businesses with a dominant bargaining position do not push labour conditions downwards.