A Culture of Commodification? Labour Rights in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union

This article examines the deficiencies of the labour rights enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (EU). It draws on the notion of labour as a fictive commodity in order to showcase how labour rights in the Charter can also be framed as being part of a commodification process, owing to a culture of commodification that is prevalent across the various institutions of the EU, and which has influenced the drafting, application and interpretation of those rights. As a result, labour rights may exist, but are only allocated a perfunctory role of maintaining the status of labour as a commodity. Their justiciability is questionable and there are limitations on their scope and direct effect. Finally, labour rights in the Charter are often conceived as subordinate to economic freedoms, exhibiting strong path-dependence and leading to a series of missed opportunities for their decommodifying potential to materialise.