Transformation of Employment Relations and Social Dumping in the European Union: The Struggle Between David and Goliath?

Abstract

In this chapter, we would like to focus on the link between social dumping and transformation of employment relations in the European Union through both the discourse of normative solutions starting with the establishment of the common European market and recent provisions of secondary legislation that favour social dumping or provide it with an alibi for legitimate development within the EU. The history of the principle of equal pay for equal work and work of equal value for women and men of the then Article 119 of the Treaty Establishing the European Economic Community clearly suggests that the introduction of the central principle today can be attributed to the fear of using the ‘benefits’ of social dumping, i.e. achieving competitive advantage within the established common European market. A few decades later, the problem of the posting of workers and the judgments of the Court of Justice, primarily in the relevant Laval and Viking cases, raise questions about the interdependence of social dumping and the transformation of employment relations in the EU. It is therefore justified to ask whether social dumping is fading away in the EU or whether, deeply rooted in employment relations in the European Union, by selective use of a range of political and economic interests and controversial contextualisation, it leaves a strong mark in the constant struggle between economic freedoms and social rights of workers.