ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of the right to strike in the civil service in Europe from a comparative law perspective. After giving a brief overview of the legal situation of strikes in Europe, light is shed on the case law of the European Court of Human Rights and its recent decisions on the right to strike of civil servants. After that, emphasis will be placed on the national jurisdictions in detail. The German, French, and Spanish legal orders prove to be particularly suitable for the purposes of this comparative law study, as all three guarantee a “right to strike” in their constitutions but diverge substantially in the scope, details, and implementation of this right. In the study, we find that the French and the Spanish interpretation of the right to strike are similar, whereas Germany’s status-based strike ban diverges substantially from the common European approach. Building on the study’s results, the chapter provides an overview of the likely future pathways for the development of the right to strike in the civil service sector.
