European Union, Brexit – the future of workers' rights
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Support for Brexit as well as any other exit from the EU can be interpreted in different ways. From a workers’ point of view it can be interpreted as strong discontent with the development of workers’ rights and the standard of living of workers. But it can also be interpreted as the success of new nationalistic populism is often fueled by racism.
Those who defend the right to remain in the EU can be neoliberals. However, they can also be workers and their organisations who want to defend existing European workers’ rights and who want to use the EU to improve workers’ rights and human rights generally. They can also be those who support freedom of movement of both workers and refugees.
At the conference we will investigate whether the EU can be a framework to safeguard and to improve workers’ rights or if it isan obstacle. We will also discuss strategies to defend workers’ rights under the conditions of Brexit and other exit strategies but also within the countries which remain in the EU. We will discuss this from the point of view of British workers as well as workers in other EU countries as well as in candidate states like Serbia. Finally in this context we will include the view of workers from the, EU, candidate states and Russia.
