One day after the launching of the course on asylum for administrative judges, the ‘HELP in the 28’ course "Labour Rights as Human Rights" was launched in Thessaloniki, in cooperation with the Greek National School of Judges.

The School Director D.Kranis and the Director of Human Rights of the Council of Europe C.Giakoumopoulos opened the course, stressing the need to defend labour rights in times of crisis and austerity measures, even more as Greece has ratified the revised European Social Charter. The role of the ESC, its Economic and Social Rights Committee, and the collective complaints system, were also highlighted, as well as the Junker’s initiative for the establishment of the European Pillar of Social Rights in 2017.

The EU/CoE 'HELP in the 28' Programme was presented as well as the content of the course, which aims at protecting workers’ rights and promote sound industrial relations. It covers issues such as working time, remuneration, termination of contract, collective negotiation, or discrimination at the workplace. As it combines the EU and CoE systems, both of them of compulsory application in EU countries, the course is becoming increasingly demanded in EU countries, particularly in Southern ones like Greece, affected by the Troika measures. Out of the 220 lawyers, only 10 were admitted to the already made group of 30 judges. Though not enrolled in the course, members of the European Student Lawyers Association (ELSA) were also present.

Though the European Convention of Human Rights does not explicitly protect the right to work [as it is the case of the EU Charter of fundamental rights], the ECHR guarantees the right to form or join trade unions. Moreover, the case law of the ECtHR has become a reference in the field of labour law, as shown in the illustrative presentation by ECtHR lawyer S. Mangrau.

Former Labour Minister, Professor Koukidis eloquently raised the interaction between the national and supranational protection of Labour Rights including the complexity of articulating EU and CoE laws and decisions of the Strasbourg and Luxembourg Court. He insisted on the need to “de-commoditise labour” and legally protect labour rights as part of social rights and in the context of rising inequality.

The roundtable revealed participant’s high interest and thought-provoking trends like the shift of disputes of employees with small or family-based business before the economic crisis and bailout hit Greece and today’s increasingly confrontations of workers with multi-nationals.

The event counted with the moderation of Judges Nikopoulos and Cosmidis.

The course –in Greek and adapted to the Greek legal order- will be moderated by Labour Judge, and HELP focal point, Petros Alikakos over three months, after which it will be publicly available on line. In the meantime, the English version is publicly accessible -for free- at the 'HELP in the 28' website. See here a video presentation of the course.