Work in Transitions – Reimagining Work via a History of EU Labour Regulation

Research Project

My research project examines how EU labour regulation and its social and economic policies have anchored different ideas of work, in particular those associated to transitions of workers, in the European social integration process since 1957. ‘Transitions’ here refer to processes in which the status of working people changes in relation to their work, for instance, job seeking, changing jobs, entering non-productive phases of life such as caregiving, or career advancement within a company.

The project examines how such ideas of transitions in European labour regulation have changed the significance of work as a marker of social inclusion. European labour regulation thereby refers to the legal, political and other instruments that have created a regulatory framework for work in the former European Economic Community and today's European Union. Beyond European labour law strictly understood, this includes but is not limited to mechanisms such as the coordination of employment policy or the European Social Fund, and thus the instruments of EU regulation that concretely and materially influence the reality of working people's lives.

Using a critical, context and case-based history, the project traces the existing and ever-shifting ideas of transitions in EU labour regulation and their political and economic context. It evaluates these ideas in terms of their concrete, material effects and the actors who shaped them. To this end, I engage with the interface between law and political economy; the debates on the nature, purpose and scope of labour law; and seek to develop a historically informed perspective on the current major transformations of the world of work, such as sustainable, digital and demographic change. Furthermore, this project aims to readjust the prevailing incremental, institutional and often emancipatory understandings of European integration by examining its fractures, discontinuities and alternative trajectories.