CHALLENGES TO LABOUR LAW

The article deals with three main challenges to labour law referring especially to the German experience. The world-wide market induced enterprises to relocate their production and to reduce labour costs at home. In Germany, a quite indirect way of exercising pressure on the workers was developed; counter-measures were rare and did not really change the situation. TTIP and CETA will worsen the situation because national sovereignty in social and environmental questions will fade away. The second challenge comes from inequality existing among workers as well as in society as a whole. There is a scission between very wealthy people on one side and people becoming poorer and poorer on the other side. Labour law has not yet developed the instruments to realize more equality among workers but some ideas are discussed. The third challenge is the digitalisation of many activities; they are no more bound to certain places or certain times of the day. The “freedom” to work at any moment and at any place entails very long working hours, work at night and work on Sundays. Legal rules on working time lose more and more there importance. A solution can be the right of workers´ representatives to discuss the tasks given to individual workers, but other means are examined in the article, too. The internet makes crowdworking possible – a new form of work which is currently not covered by labour law.