Protection of workers' rights in international and European law

This paper aims to present the normative, institutional system, as well as the jurisprudence structured at the level of the most prestigious international institutions regarding a continuously topical issue, namely, the protection of workers' rights.

The complex conditions existing at international, European and domestic level from the economic-financial point of view registered in recent years, in which the term "crisis" is a consistent leitmotif, have often led to precarious status of workers, especially vulnerable ones, such as young people, women or people with disabilities. The situation of the Romanian labor market is not different, strongly affected by the non-existence of effective investment strategies and put into practice in order to ensure the necessary jobs, as well as by the massive migration among people at the age of maximum professional maturity.

Those who remain in the country are often forced to accept, due to either the fear of losing their job, or the recognition of their rights under domestic and international legislation, unfavorable contractual and working conditions.

At the level of the European Union, there is a consensus on the need to adapt the standards, so that they respond as well as possible to the imperatives of worker protection, but also to the optimal functioning of the European single market.

Concerns in this regard about the improvement of the directives on working time or posting of workers, or via the debate on the right to collective action at European level, presented, moreover, in this paper, as well as the latest policies, rules, international and European standards, which relate to workers' rights.

Regarding the regulations and directives of the European Union, in the absence of a similar approach in the Romanian and even international legal literature, we analyzed the representative decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union adopted until the date of sending to print. awareness of the stage reached by international norms, especially European ones, in the issue of worker protection, the fundamental component of the human rights system, as well as the analysis of the degree of compliance of Romanian legislation with them. Also found in the pages of the paper are the most recent significant decisions of the national and European courts that have clarified the content and significance of the normative provisions, for the benefit of the participants in the legal labor relations.

We hope, thus, to contribute to the diminution of a certain state of atony registered in our society, from the legislative level to that of the social partners and even of the workers themselves and to determine them to dialogue and act in their interest, but also of the whole society. . Therefore, we opted for a presentation style and an accessible language that allows all those interested, regardless of whether they have legal training or not, to understand the structure and purpose of international standards in worker protection and use the information contained, our conviction being that a truly democratic society is one that is based on people who know their rights properly and act in their direction.

Our intention is that all this effort of analysis, synthesis and evaluation of international, European and domestic standards in the field of workers' rights to be a useful tool available to those interested in improving the legislative framework, conduct and mentalities, so that on following them to take advantage of all those engaged in labor relations, and, ultimately, the entire Romanian society, as part of the economic and social space of the European Union.

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