Documents Garben, Sacha 11 results

"This report sets out to describe the potential occupational safety and health (OSH) risks that have been identified in relation to online platform work, to highlight the challenges for current regulatory approaches on OSH and to present examples of different approaches that are under way or being developed to meet these challenges. Given this, this report does not pretend to give a verdict on whether online platform work is ‘good' or ‘bad' and indeed it mentions, as well as the potential risks, the potential benefits, such as reducing the extent of undeclared work."

"How is it that regardless of the reforms introduced by the Lisbon Treaty to better contain European integration in areas of core state powers, ‘competence creep' can continue? What is the underlying cause? And why is it problematic? This article proposes answers to these questions through a systematic (re‐)conceptualization of the problem of ‘competence creep', arguing that it results from the cross‐cutting governance that is the legal Leitmotif of European integration as well as from ‘two‐level games' of national governments, and that it is problematic from the viewpoint of democratic legitimacy. However, it argues that the one form of competence creep that is most commonly understood as the core problem, and on which most reforms have focused, namely indirect legislation in areas of Member State competence, is actually the least worrying type of covert integration; negative and parallel integration, soft law and co‐ordination are all far more problematic."

"The online platform economy raises a range of intricate legal questions connected to labour law and social security protection. In particular, the atypical forms of labour relationships used by many online platforms (e.g. multilateral, hyper‐temporary, off‐site, autonomous), often contractually defined as independent contracting, have challenged the application of labour and occupational health and safety law in many countries across the world, as the application of these norms tends to be dependent on the existence of an “employment relationship”. These developments are compounding the general increase in atypical employment, especially as a result of the 2007–08 financial and economic crisis. It has mostly fallen to courts to resolve the disputes between online platforms and their online platform workers, but some European Union (EU) Member States (such as France) have taken specific legal measures in response to these difficulties. Also, the EU‐level as such is becoming increasingly involved, with the Court of Justice's ruling in the case of Uber providing some guidance on the “employment question”, and a pending legislative initiative on a Directive for Transparent and Predictable Working Conditions which may provide minimum labour protection for online platform workers in the EU. This article analyzes the problem of labour law in the online platform economy and surveys the various responses by courts and policy‐makers across the EU, which may furthermore set the tone for developments outside the EU in this area."

"This book takes a wide-ranging approach to tackle the complex question of the current state of constitutional democracy in the EU. It brings together a broad set of academics and practitioners with legal and political perspectives to focus on both topical and perennial issues concerning constitutional democracy (including safeguarding the rule of law and respect for fundamental rights) in theory and practice, primarily at EU level but also with due regard to national and global developments. This approach underlines that rather than a single problématique to be analysed and resolved, we are presently facing a kaleidoscopic spectrum of related challenges that influence each other in elusive, multifaceted ways. Critical Reflections on Constitutional Democracy in the European Union offers a rich analysis of the issues as well as concrete policy recommendations, which will appeal to scholars and practitioners, students and interested citizens alike. It provides a meaningful contribution to the array of existing scholarship and debate by proposing original elements of analysis, challenging often-made assumptions, destabilising settled understandings and proposing fundamental reforms. Overall, the collection injects a set of fresh critical perspectives on this fundamental issue that is as contemporary as it is eternal."

"A few months ago, the new European Commission boldly announced its plans to deliver an EU minimum wage legal measure within its first 100 days in office. The COVID-19 crisis is likely to affect not only the schedule of this high-profile initiative, but the very political appetite for it. Yet, the COVID-19 induced economic downturn presents a litmus test for Social Europe, and more specifically the European Pillar of Social Rights (EPSR), as well as – arguably – for the minimum wage initiative.
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"The EU legal order recognises at its highest level both fundamental social rights/freedoms and economic rights/freedoms. As is well-known, it is in the cases where these have had to be balanced against one another, that profound legal and political difficulties have appeared over the years, feeding into a more general concern about an asymmetry between social and economic values and outcomes in the European integration process. While we need to be careful not to overstate the extent of conflict, it deserves to be reiterated that there remain a number of important ‘social sore spots' that despite sustained academic and political critique, and despite some adjustments in the Court's approach, continue to emerge and challenge the EU's social legitimacy. The EU's approach towards the right to strike and bargain collectively in relation to the internal market provisions on the free provision of services and establishment, which has not only met with criticism internally but has also been considered at odds with international social rights, remains problematic in spite of the CJEU's more recent ‘conciliatory' case law. Moreover, relatively recent (r)evolutions in the case law as regards the freedom to conduct a business have raised important new tensions. In accordance with its brief, this article maps these frictions and, more importantly, considers how the adjudication of these rights could be conducted differently. In this regard, it argues that the most appropriate alternative approach is one not directed at procuring more ‘social' outcomes as such, but instead one that provides a more constitutionally and democratically legitimate framework of adjudication of fundamental rights generally, and social and economic rights specifically. Indeed, while this paper therefore shares the fundamental ambition of some other thought-provoking approaches proposed recently to provide the European judiciary with an alternative framework for the balancing of social and economic rights, the proposal of this paper is different in the importance it attaches to democracy. Democracy shall be the guiding concern in the proposed framework, not only by ensuring that the extent to which these rights are enforced against the national and European legislative process remains limited to what is necessary, but also in providing the dominant telos that should inform the substantive interpretation of these rights."

"This edited volume brings together leading authors and actors in EU internal market law and policy, revisiting the classic themes in a contemporary context and considering (re-)directions for the future.
The EU would not be where and what it is today without its internal market. It is the cradle of the EU's most important legal doctrines and the source of the most significant amount of European integration. And, as Brexit has underlined, it remains the primary political reason for EU membership.
Considering the well-established and fundamental nature of internal market law, it is striking to find many crucial doctrinal questions still unanswered today, as explored by this book. Furthermore, these questions now find a new legal, social and political context: one that is acutely aware of the contested nature of the EU and its policies and the need to embed the internal market project in a broader setting of constitutional norms and values. This need is made all the more pressing by the rapidly changing and often disruptive technological context. The various contributions to this book contribute to finding a new direction for continued European integration in changing times, by rethinking, and where necessary reinventing, the role and purpose of this area that remains the EU's beating heart."