Transnational Labour Regulation: A Case Study of Temporary Agency Work (Travail et Société / Work and Society)

This book illuminates the process and substance of transnational regulation of labour in a global economy. Transnational labour regulation, a central feature of the European social model, engages the 27 Member States of the European Union, and is of potential importance to the rest of the world. The book analyses the attempts at transnational regulation of temporary agency work through the social dialogue between trade unions and employers’ organisations at European level and the subsequent – and so far fruitless – EU legislative process. These two processes of transnational labour regulation, and their interaction, until now have been largely invisible. The book also highlights distinctive features of Member States’ national regulation as they interacted with the debates on EU transnational labour regulation. It further explores the overlap between regulation of temporary agency work and the EU’s regulation of transnational trade in services, the subject of the Directive on services in the internal market. Finally, it draws lessons from the experience of regulation of temporary agency work at national and European levels for transnational labour regulation in general.

The Authors: Kerstin Ahlberg is a researcher at the Institute for Social Private Law, Department of Law, Stockholm University. From 1996 to 2007 she was a researcher and an editor at the Swedish National Institute for Working Life.
Brian Bercusson is Professor of European Social and Labour Law at King’s College, University of London. From 1997 to 2006 he was Guest Professor at the Swedish National Institute for Working Life.
Niklas Bruun is Professor of Private Law at the University of Helsinki. From 1993 to 2007 he was linked to the Swedish National Institute for Working Life as an Academic supervisor for EU Labour Law research.
Haris Kountouros completed his Ph.D. at King’s College, University of London. He is currently the Head of Sector for parliamentary assistance allowance at the European Parliament’s DG Finance.
Christophe Vigneau, Ph.D. from the European University Institute (Florence), is Senior lecturer in Law at the University Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne.
Loredana Zappalà, Ph.D. in European Labour Law, is Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Political Sciences of the University of Catania.