The Revision of the Posted Workers Directive as a Polanyian Response to Commodification of Labor in Europe

Posting of workers has been a crucial part of the discussions on Social Europe since the 1980s. It is a particular mode of cross-border labor mobility in the European Union under Art. 56 TFEU,¹ where workers are sent or “posted” from one member state to another in order to perform a contract for services awarded to their employer. The focus of this article will, however, not be on the many intricate details of the practice of posting of workers² but rather on its broader implications for the European integration process. Drawing on Karl Polanyi’s Great Transformation (Polanyi [1944] 2001), the article argues that the particular relevance of posting for the European Union’s overall development as a polity consists in bringing the question about the role of “labor institutions” in the EU governance system to the core of EU politics. Institutionalized through the continuous interpretation by the European...