THE NATURE AND POSITION OF CREATIVE WORKERS’ RIGHT TO PROTECTION OF LABOUR RIGHTS WITHIN SYSTEM OF LABOUR RIGHTS

Abstract

This article seeks to clarify the content of creative workers’ right to the protection of their labour rights in
Ukraine and to determine the position of that right within the wider system of such workers’ labour rights. Creative
workers possess a corpus of rights as an integral element of their labour status: general (baseline) rights that form
the foundation of the guarantee system and accrue equally to all persons employed under a contract of
employment; special rights flowing from the distinctive legal status of creative workers as a professional category
performing creative functions; and specific rights attaching to creative workers who also fall within protected
categories, such as persons with disabilities or those with particular family responsibilities.
Yet the nominal entrenchment of rights in legislation and contract is not synonymous with their effectiveness
in practice, a disparity that is particularly acute in the creative sector. In the absence of adequate guarantees, the
catalogue of rights risks degenerating into progressive but declaratory provisions; moreover, creative workers
require legally defined and institutionally supported avenues (both human-rights based and law-enforcement
oriented) to confirm the reality of their labour rights whenever these are disputed, unrecognised, or otherwise
called into question.
In these circumstances, the proper guarantee of a creative worker’s right to the protection of labour rights
becomes pivotal: it is an autonomous subjective right belonging to the class of basic employee rights and it
functions as a systemic guarantee that renders all other labour rights effective in fact. In formal terms, the purpose
of this right is to secure the exercise and restoration of violated labour rights and to prevent further infringements.
Conceptually, its purpose is to sustain a condition of socially safe existence that flows from participation in
an employment relationship. It also serves a background aim: the re-establishment of an appropriate level of social
security through the operation of Ukraine’s labour-law regime in the particular employee’s case.
Taken together, these aims underscore the right’s socio-legal significance and confirm that, for creative
workers, the acquisition and exercise of the right to the protection of labour rights is, first, a basic guarantee of
the existence of employment as a socially safe form of legal interaction and, secondly, a specific guarantee of the
proper implementation of the principle of decent work. They also reflect the evolution of modern labour law on
humanistic foundations that unconditionally prioritise the person over production and industrial processes.
Accordingly, the right of creative workers to the protection of labour rights occupies a central position within
the system of labour rights: it is part of the basic (general) corpus of employee rights; it operates both as an
autonomous entitlement and as a guarantee right that renders all other labour rights effective in practice. In
functional terms, it performs instrumental, restorative, safeguarding, and deterrent roles.
Keywords: creative worker, employee, equality, human-centrism, labour law, labour rights, reality of labour
rights, right to protection, social security