Virginia Mantouvalou

Are Labour Rights Human Rights

Are labour rights human rights? This question has attracted much interest in recent years among lawyers, academic scholars, trade unionists and other activists, and has given rise to heated debates. In human rights law and labour law scholarship, some endorse the character of labour rights as human rights without hesitation, while others view it with scepticism and suspicion. This article finds that there are in fact three different approaches in the literature that examines labour rights as human rights, which are not always distinguished with sufficient clarity. First, there is a positivistic approach, according to which a group of rights are human rights insofar as certain treaties recognise them as such. The question whether labour rights are human rights is uncomplicated on this approach, which is often found in international law scholarship. A response to it comes through a survey of human rights law. If labour rights are incorporated in human rights documents, they are human rights. If they do not figure therein, they are not human rights. A second way in which the question of this article is approached is an instrumental one that looks at the consequences of using strategies, such as litigation or civil society action, which promote labour rights as human rights. This is the most common way in which labour law scholars analyse the problem in question. If strategies are, as a matter of social fact, successful, the question is answered in the affirmative; if not, scepticism is expressed. The third approach to the question whether labour rights are human rights is a normative one. It examines what a human right is, and assesses, given this definition, whether certain labour rights are human rights. This path is the one that has been least taken in the literature, but is an important one and has implications for the previous two approaches. This article maps out the three approaches above, addresses the main arguments advanced in scholarship and explores their implications.

Redfearn v UK: Political Association and Dismissal

In Redfearn v UK the European Court of Human Rights examined the question whether dismissal for membership of a political party is compatible with freedom of association under Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Court endorsed a strong commitment to multi-party democracy and protection of employees against the domination of the employers. This note discusses the judgment and its implications for UK law, looking at three key issues: first, whether the law of unfair dismissal provides effective protection against action that poses a threat to the enjoyment of Convention rights; second, the grounds under which an employer may justify the lawfulness of a dismissal that interferes with a Convention right; third, the available remedies against the employer when there is a breach of a Convention right.

The Council of Europe and the Protection of Human Rights: A System in Need of Reform

This paper presents the key human rights instruments of the Council of Europe: the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Social Charter. It looks at their content and analyses their monitoring mechanisms. It examines the differences in the protection between civil and political, on the one hand, and socio-economic entitlements, on the other, and identifies the shortcomings of each system. It, finally, puts forward certain suggestions as to the future prospects of the protection of human rights by this European regional organisation that counts 47 Member States.

Active Industrial Citizenship of Domestic Workers: Lessons Learned from Unionizing Attempts in Israel and the United Kingdom

In this Article we offer a new conceptualization of industrial citizenship, which is sensitive to gender and migration status. Our conceptualization builds on the theoretical distinction between active and passive citizenship and the analyses of active industrial citizenship. We suggest that active industrial citizenship should be detached from the old and influential tradition of trade unionism that is connected with the public/private divide. Our proposed conceptualization leads to attaching value to activities related to ethics of care and to the pursuit of legal status, which should be seen as forms of activism. The discussion focuses on organizing domestic workers. We argue that this new conceptualization of active industrial citizenship leads to the recognition of domestic workers as active industrial citizens, rather than passive victims of abuse. It also transforms the way we view organizational forms within the labor market, making it possible to appreciate on an equal basis membership in trade unions and participation in NGOs and other civil society organizations, thereby building cooperation as well as taking part in other aspects of public life. We ground our argument on theoretical literature as well as a qualitative study, a series of interviews with key trade union and NGO actors with expertise in organizing and supporting domestic workers in Israel and the United Kingdom.