A Human Rights Analysis of the Viking and Laval Judgments

Abstract

In 2007, Brian Bercusson observed that: [T]he future of the trade union movement, but also of the EU, may depend on whether on judgment day the European Court of Justice decides that the EU legal order upholds the right of trade unions to take transnational collective action.Previously, deference to domestic labour legislation did not translate into judicial recognition of a right to collective bargaining or a strike. There was only speculation that this should be the case, accompanied by significant opposition from the UK to such a prospect. Judgment day has since come and we have been told that ‘[t]he right to take collective action, including the right to strike, must … be recognised as a fundamental right which forms an integral part of the general principles of Community law’. Indeed, it also seems that such a right extends at least in theory to secondary and transnational action.