The European Labour Law Journal has just published a Special Issue entitled “‘Testing the “personal work” relation: New Trade Union strategies for new forms of employment’”. We attach here the Preface and Table of Contents of the issue.

This Special Issue, edited by the three of us, follows the publication of a Report written by Nicola Countouris and Valerio De a Stefano for the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC). This Report advocates the extension of all employment and labour protection to every person providing personal work.

In order to prepare the Report, the Authors asked colleagues from several countries in Europe to prepare a national study on the definition of employment and self-employment and the protection of self-employed persons in their respective jurisdictions.

This ELLJ Special Issue includes all the national studies, featuring articles for: Austria (by Elisabeth Brameshuber), Belgium (by Mathias Wouters), France (by Emmanuel Dockès), Germany (by Monika Schlachter), Italy (by Elena Gramano & Giovanni Gaudio), Spain (by Adrián Todoli), Sweden (by Samuel Engblom & Magnus Lundberg), and the United Kingdom (by Mark Freedland & Hitesh Dhorajiwala).

These studies are preceded by the Executive Summary of the ETUC report and by and Introduction written by Mark Freedland commenting on the Report and laying questions for further analysis. Following the national studies, the Special Issue also features an article written by Ioannis Lianos together with Countouris and De Stefano on reconceptualizing the relationship between competition and labour law to reaffirm the right of self-employed workers to bargain collectively. The Special Issue is concluded by an essay written by Keith Ewing, John Hendy QC, and Cad Jones.