PhD thesis defence by Aikaterini Orfanidi.
This thesis examines EU law’s role in shaping precarious work, understood as a structural phenomenon constituted by different types of work relationships exhibiting insecurity and poor working conditions in diverse combinations and degrees, whose spread and entrenchment raise a central normative concern, its self-reinforcing nature. The thesis visualises precarious work through a spectrum mapping the breadth and multifaceted nature of such relationships along two axes – precariousness and quality of working conditions.
It explores EU law’s role by examining how the Fixed-Term Work Directive, the Seasonal Workers Directive and the Transparent and Predictable Working Conditions Directive each shape a model of precarious work – fixed-term work, migrant seasonal work and gig-work respectively. The analysis is conducted at two levels: the design of the directive by the EU legislator and its operation across national legal orders, notably Greece and Italy. The thesis argues that EU law’s role is constitutive, multi-directional and mediated rather than straightforwardly worker-protective or deregulatory.
The thesis confirms that precarious work is the most appropriate concept for approaching insecure and poor-quality work as a structural and multifaceted phenomenon and reveals the complexity of precarious work models, their internal diversity and interactions, underlining the need to consider the issue in its entirety rather than through its individual manifestations. It identifies diverse mechanisms of its self-reinforcing nature. The thesis uncovers EU law’s constitutive function as regards regulated precarious work models and its operation through anticipated and unanticipated channels, prompting further consideration of the relationship
between EU and national legal orders. It stresses a persistent gap between law on the books and law in action. By revealing that EU law’s effects are shaped as much by national factors and actors’ mobilisation as by directive standards, the thesis opens a wider reflection on EU precarious work regulation at both EU and national levels.
The Zoom link will be shared upon registration.
Register