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DIGNITY AT THE WORKPLACE. WHAT IS PROTECTED AND WHO HAS TO PROTECT IT?
relation rights are exercised in a horizontal, private context, between the employer
and the employee, where both parties have their specific, legitimate interest that
needs protection. Ihe contract-based subordination of the dependent worker as
weaker party raises the necessity of protection of dignity under the power of the
employer, on the other hand, the just economic and business interest of the em¬
ployer reguires limitation of the civil autonomy and civil rights within employment.
For this different, more private context the legal guarantee of dignity at the
workplace has remained out of focus even after it was declared in the UN human
rights treaties relevant for employment relations (the ICESCR, CERD, CEDAW and
the CRPD). Only general terms indicate in their Preambles that those rights derive
from inherent human dignity, there is no reference to employment or workplace.
General Comment (no.18) to the ICESCR on the right to work, the most pertinent
GC on our subject also stops at the door of the workplace: only the right to work and
the freedom to choose the job get relevance as part of dignity.* Dignity inside the
“private area” of the workplace in terms of the universal eonomic rights was left out.
The time factor has specific significance here: the progress of the international
legal instruments and legal thinking, first of all the approximation of civil-political
social-eonomic rights started change.
Dignity was present rather as moral issue in the “private” context of
employment, as protection against “humiliation”. If wages are too low, if assigned
tasks are much below the level of knowledge, skill and education, can be perceived
“humiliating”. However, as long as they are corresponding to the contract, and the
contract is in compliance with the statutory norms or collective agreements — in
legal terms they are considered consensual. Thus, the perception of dignity at the
workplace connected it primarily to non-discrimination, respect for the limits of
the unilateral power of employer and respect for the privacy of employees.
THE PROGRESS BROUGHT BY ARTICLE 26 OF THE REVISED EUROPEAN SOCIAL
CHARTER. REVOLUTIONARY OR STEPPING BACK?
The very first international treaty provision in Europe protecting dignity at the
workplace expressis verbis was Article 26 on “The Right to Dignity at Work”
of the Revised European Social Charter’® (the “Social Charter”) adopted in
15 UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), General Comment No.
18: The Right to Work (Art. 6 of the Covenant), 6 February 2006, E/C.12/GC/18, Sections 1,
4, 19., https://www.refworld.org/docid/4415453b4.html.
16 The European Social Charter (1961) the human right treaty of the Council of Europe
complementing the European Convention on Civil and Political Rights, its revised and
extended version, the Revised Social Charter was adopted in 1996.
+ 315 *