Well-Being at Work: The Role of Skills in International and European Labour Law

Abstract

Securing people’s well-being is the ultimate goal of economic and social policy of any political community. And the best way to do this is to develop people’s skills. In this paper, my research question is whether it is possible to provide a theoretical justification for the well-being-enhancing nature of labour law and policy. My response is that it is possible and I answer by adopting the following approach. First, I outline what I mean by well-being (section I). Second, I link well-being with personal development, particularly as it relates to the development of a person’s skills (section II). Third, I locate skills within the emerging and recent literature on labour law and capabilities (section III). Fourth, I link skills with the laws and policies of the ILO, in particular Conventions nos 122/1964 and 142/1975, and the European Union, particularly the Bologna Process and the European Qualifications Framework (‘EQF’) (section IV). The link made between skills and employment policy highlights the need to further coordinate education and training for the labour market, possibly culminating in the development of a ‘right to employability’.