International and comparative labour law

The course offers an overview of European Union and International institutions and legal sources in the labour law field with a focus on the following topics: workers' freedom of movement, conflict of laws, atypical work, conflict between economic freedoms and collective rights, collective redundancies, workers participations to the business making process. A particular attention will be paid to the current European Union debate on social policy issues such as minimum wage, global supply chains and human rights. The course also intends to provide students with a good knowledge of comparative method in the employment and labour law field as to enable them to understand the most significant differences between the American, European and Chinese legal perspectives on relevant labour law issues such as collective bargaining and right to strike, the blurring distinction between employment and self-employment in the platform economy, individual dismissal.

Students who attend the course will acquire competence to:
- identify legal sources of employment relationship at international and European Union and understand how they interact;
- identify the main international and European Union actors and institutions in the labour law field and understand their role and functions;
- acknowledge the problem of conflict of laws and identify the law applicable to the employment relationship;
- acknowledge the problematic dialogue and conflict between economic freedoms and collective rights;
- acknowledge the existence of different models of corporate governance and how this influences the topic of workers participation in the business making process;
- understand the current European Union debates on social policy issues;
- understand and compare main differences between the American, European and Chinese employment legal traditions.