Labour rights in the making of the EU and in the CJEU case law. A case study on the transfer of undertakings directives

This article inquires on the approach to labour rights that has characterized the development of the EU. First, it analyses the way in which the EU policy making refers to social and labour standards and to their function within the process of EU integration. Subsequently, the article turns to the CJEU interpretation of workers’ rights, by taking the Directive on transfers of undertaking as case study. The concluding findings are that there is a certain degree of convergence between the CJEU’s reasoning and the policy documents. In both cases, it is possible to identify a gradual change in the approach to labour rights, which are more and more considered from a market-oriented perspective. The article concludes observing that this has led to the progressive weakening of the protective function of the analysed labour norms