EU-rättens inverkan på kollektivavtalens ställning vid oskälighetsbedömningar - är ställningen oförenlig med EU-rätten?
(2011) HARK13 20102Department of Business Law
- Abstract
- Swedish labor law is essentially based on the notion that the social partners will regulate working conditions. In view of this, a special practice on unfairness assessments of collective agreements has emerged. It is felt that collective agreements should be more difficult to amend in Court than other types of agreements. Since 1995 however, Sweden is obliged to apply EU law, and not to take actions which impede the implementation of the EU's objectives. The purpose of this essay is to investigate whether this special practice is at odds with EU law, when the terms of an agreement are clearly contrary to EU objectives or basic principles. The essay is using a classic legal dogmatic method, first investigating established law, then... (More)
- Swedish labor law is essentially based on the notion that the social partners will regulate working conditions. In view of this, a special practice on unfairness assessments of collective agreements has emerged. It is felt that collective agreements should be more difficult to amend in Court than other types of agreements. Since 1995 however, Sweden is obliged to apply EU law, and not to take actions which impede the implementation of the EU's objectives. The purpose of this essay is to investigate whether this special practice is at odds with EU law, when the terms of an agreement are clearly contrary to EU objectives or basic principles. The essay is using a classic legal dogmatic method, first investigating established law, then analyzing it.
The results are ambiguous. Although it can be concluded that collective agreements are treated in a particularly restrictive manner, and that they are adjusted only in exceptional cases, it is unclear whether this approach is incompatible with EU law. Some interesting points are however worth noting. The Swedish Labour Court has on occasion, in the past, reconciled conditions based on collective agreements on the basis of general legal principles. At the same time, the ECJ has, in Mangold and subsequent cases, given basic EU principles a direct horizontal effect. This is important. It means that one could argue that, because of this, Union principles could be used as a basis to reconcile collective agreements, and therefore, that the status collective agreements has been given, in regard to unfairness assessments, is indeed incompatible with EU law - when the collective agreement in question is contrary to fundamental EU principles. If this is indeed the case, it is of huge fundamental significance as it restricts the parties' autonomy when negotiating collective agreements. The parties will, in principle, have to respect the fundamental objectives and basic principles of the Union. The conclusion is that the legal situation needs to be resolved by a fundamental legal decision. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/1971244
- author
- Arkemyr Ahrling, Jonathan LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- HARK13 20102
- year
- 2011
- type
- M2 - Bachelor Degree
- subject
- keywords
- EU law, Collective agreements, Party Autonomy, Fundamental Rights, Unfairness, EU-rätt, Kollektivavtal, Oskälighet, Partsautonomi, Grundläggande rättigheter
- language
- English
- Swedish
- id
- 1971244
- date added to LUP
- 2011-05-31 14:33:25
- date last changed
- 2011-05-31 14:33:25
@misc{1971244,
abstract = {{Swedish labor law is essentially based on the notion that the social partners will regulate working conditions. In view of this, a special practice on unfairness assessments of collective agreements has emerged. It is felt that collective agreements should be more difficult to amend in Court than other types of agreements. Since 1995 however, Sweden is obliged to apply EU law, and not to take actions which impede the implementation of the EU's objectives. The purpose of this essay is to investigate whether this special practice is at odds with EU law, when the terms of an agreement are clearly contrary to EU objectives or basic principles. The essay is using a classic legal dogmatic method, first investigating established law, then analyzing it.
The results are ambiguous. Although it can be concluded that collective agreements are treated in a particularly restrictive manner, and that they are adjusted only in exceptional cases, it is unclear whether this approach is incompatible with EU law. Some interesting points are however worth noting. The Swedish Labour Court has on occasion, in the past, reconciled conditions based on collective agreements on the basis of general legal principles. At the same time, the ECJ has, in Mangold and subsequent cases, given basic EU principles a direct horizontal effect. This is important. It means that one could argue that, because of this, Union principles could be used as a basis to reconcile collective agreements, and therefore, that the status collective agreements has been given, in regard to unfairness assessments, is indeed incompatible with EU law - when the collective agreement in question is contrary to fundamental EU principles. If this is indeed the case, it is of huge fundamental significance as it restricts the parties' autonomy when negotiating collective agreements. The parties will, in principle, have to respect the fundamental objectives and basic principles of the Union. The conclusion is that the legal situation needs to be resolved by a fundamental legal decision.}},
author = {{Arkemyr Ahrling, Jonathan}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{EU-rättens inverkan på kollektivavtalens ställning vid oskälighetsbedömningar - är ställningen oförenlig med EU-rätten?}},
year = {{2011}},
}