As Europe begins to emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic, two trends are clear: one, labour market reform is urgently needed, to cope with new economic and technological realities; and two, big government is back. The recent decision of the Irish Supreme Court in Náisiúnta Leichtreach Contraitheoir Éireann v Labour Court illuminates the relationship between collective bargaining and the regulatory state. In potentially one of the most important decisions in Irish labour law in decades, the Court rejected a constitutional challenge to legislation aimed at empowering social partners to regulate economic sectors through collective bargaining. This article situates that decision within recent scholarship on the ‘labour constitution’ model of labour law, under which the social partners should participate in economic governance. It also highlights the relevance of the decision for the ‘Social Europe’ agenda and the political economy of both national constitutional law and the EU internal market.

中文翻译：

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电气承包商案：爱尔兰最高法院阐明集体谈判和授权立法

随着欧洲开始摆脱 Covid-19 大流行，有两个趋势很明显：一是迫切需要劳动力市场改革，以应对新的经济和技术现实；第二，大政府回来了。爱尔兰最高法院最近在Náisiúnta Leichtreach Contraitheoir Éireann v Labor Court案中的裁决阐明了集体谈判与监管国家之间的关系。在可能是几十年来爱尔兰劳动法中最重要的决定之一，法院驳回了对旨在授权社会伙伴通过集体谈判来规范经济部门的立法的宪法挑战。本文将这一决定置于最近关于劳动法“劳动宪法”模型的学术研究中，根据该模型，社会伙伴应参与经济治理。它还强调了该决定与“社会欧洲”议程以及国家宪法和欧盟内部市场的政治经济学的相关性。