Labour and Social Rights: An Evolving Scenario. Proceedings of the Twelfth International Conference in Commemoration of Marco Biagi

This book contains a selection of papers from the Twelfth International Conference in commemoration of Marco Biagi, held at the Marco Biagi Foundation in Modena, Italy on 18-19 March 2014, entitled Labour and Social Rights: An Evolving Scenario1. The aim of the Conference was to promote a discussion on one of the most important effects of the global economic crisis, i.e. the redefinition of the link between labour relations and social protection, undermining the special status of labour law. In the present scenario, labour law scholars are facing a dilemma: on the one hand there are those who argue that labour and employment law should be merged into more extensive or neutral fields; on the other hand, there are those who defend the traditional framework, modified to reflect the changing nature of employment and the underlying interests and identities. The analytical perspective proposed to tackle this issue was that of social rights. The use of this term, in the modern sense, not limited to rights deriving from public policy, was intended to highlight the main factors giving rise to changes at micro level in the balance of power and bargaining positions associated with the two sides of industry, and, at macro level, to the increasing asymmetry between the civil and social aspects of labour law regulation, deemed to be in conflict in the arguments put forward by policy-makers and the courts (in particular the Court of Justice of the European Union).