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Human Rights and European Politics: The Legal - Political Status of

01 January 1991

Human Rights and European Politics: The Legal - Political Status of
Workers in the European Community
libdoc November=1993

Author: Fabricius, Fritz
Publisher: BERG
Keywords: EC Trade Unions

Contents:
The free movement of labour will be one of the key elements of the
Single Market. One would therefore expect that efforts would have
been made to harmonise social policies, especially on the legal
status of workers. But the existing EC Treaty contains no provision
for this and The Community Charter of the Fundamental Social Rights
of Workers of 1989 fails to fill the gap. The Charter delegates the
socio-political responsibility in almost all points to the Member
States. Yet the constitutions of most refer only to general human
rights. In practice, most of the Member States place the greatest
relevance on civil and political human rights. The author of this
volume, however, stresses the importance of economic and social human
rights which, like human rights in general, have their roots in the
Enlightenment, especially in the works of montesquieu, Adam Smith and
Kant. The author examines how these thinkers' ideas on such topics
have been neglected since the nineteenth century argues that it is
time to revive them. He discusses such hotly debated issues as
ownership of the product of labour, workers' co-determination,
strikes and lockouts in the light of these ideas. He concludes that it
is vital for the Single Market to extend human rights to the social
economic spheres, going beyond the terms of the Maastricht Treaty.