PRINCIPAL FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO THE VIOLATION OF THE LABOUR RIGHTS OF CREATIVE WORKERS

Abstract

This article examines the principal factors contributing to violations of the labour rights of creative workers and clarifies how those factors impede this category of workers in exercising their right to the protection of their labour rights and legitimate interests. The study proceeds from the premise that, within the system of decent-work guarantees, the right to the protection of labour rights is not merely ancillary, but constitutes one of the basic conditions for the practical effectiveness of labour rights as such. For that reason, the condition of legal protection afforded to creative workers should be assessed not only by reference to the formal existence of labour-law guarantees, but also by the capacity of the legal and institutional framework to respond promptly to violations, bring them to an effective end, and restore the infringed right fully and adequately.

It is argued that the protection of the labour rights of creative workers has not yet received comprehensive treatment in Ukrainian labour-law scholarship. Particular attention is drawn to the fact that Ukraine currently lacks specialised statistical studies capable of providing a coherent and up-to-date picture of violations of the labour rights of creative workers. In these circumstances, identifying the relevant factors requires recourse not only to domestic doctrinal sources on the protection of labour rights in general, but also to UNESCO materials, international analytical documents, and publications by foreign experts addressing current developments in the sphere of creative labour. The article demonstrates that violations of the labour rights of creative workers are conditioned not by isolated or accidental circumstances, but by a combination of interrelated normative, organisational, socio-economic, and institutional factors. The principal factors identified in the study are the insufficiency of the legal framework securing the labour rights of creative workers, the desocialisation of labour and employment, the weakening of collective protection and trade union influence, and the spread of informal employment and bogus self-employment among creative workers. It is substantiated that, in their interaction, these factors produce heightened vulnerability among creative workers, whose labour rights are frequently exercised under conditions of unstable employment, fragmented legal regulation, weak mechanisms of collective representation, and the factual withdrawal of labour relations from the scope of labour legislation.

The article concludes that overcoming these problems requires a comprehensive strengthening of the legal guarantees protecting the labour rights and legitimate interests of creative workers, together with further improvement of the normative and institutional framework for their protection. The practical significance of the study lies in the possibility of using its findings in law-making, labour-inspection and supervisory practice, and the adjudication of disputes concerning the protection of the labour rights of creative workers.

Keywords: bogus self-employment, collective protection, creative workers, decent work, desocialisation of labour, guarantees of labour rights, informal employment, labour rights, protection of labour rights.