EALCJ conference in Warsaw
image: Tingey Injury on Unsplash
Gerrard Boot and Yvonne Erkens attended the annual conference of the European Association of Labour Court Judges (EALCJ) which was held from 12 to 14 June in Warsaw, Poland.
At this year’s conference, labour judges from various EU Member States discussed the independence of the judiciary from the government. This topic gives cause for concern.
Methods of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) in employment law was also a topic of discussion. The need to deal with cases in an alternative manner, out of court, differed from state to state. In some countries, labour judges have to deal with huge backlogs and a high workload, while in other countries the problem is not nearly as great. In the latter group, there may of course be other reasons to resolve employment cases in a different way to the standard judicial procedure.
The EALCJ is composed of judges from various EU countries specialised in employment law. They gather each year to consider a topical issue related to labour law, such as platform work, safe working conditions, or ADR. The judges report on their country on the basis of questionnaires and the findings are discussed at the conference. The EALCJ is organised by Leiden Law School’s Department of Labour Law and Social Security.