From the industrial revolution to globalisation and integrative labour markets

This paper aims to assess and analyse the legal regime, the importance, and the legal and regulatory effect that trade unions, and subsequently collective bargaining, have in a legal system and in the hierarchy of norms therein, both at the national and international level. After a systemic principal overview, the construction of the paper departs from the fact that under the foundational principles of international law, employees' rights protection is guaranteed by both custom and codified norms. However, the form of enforcement of this social guarantee is highly dependent on the consensual nature of the international arena and on the states' compliance with the internationally accepted standards and their immersion into the national systems of law. Moreover, the paper analyses, in an interdisciplinary manner, both the legal regimes of collective bargaining and trade unions and comparative cases, with particular stress on the UAE and the situation at the regulatory and enforcement levels therein. Finally, the findings of the paper militate towards a more prolific enforcement regime and the development of adjacent resources, regulatory or policy related, for a higher protection of employees' rights thereto.