Towards sustainable social law: the autonomy-private life nexus. The protection of non-productive spaces within working time regulation

Abstract

Climate change’s adverse impacts are not limited to the environmental effects but rather have a huge eco-social implication and a global, intersectional, and immediate response towards sustainable societies is required. We argue that this endeavour is part of a holistic change of paradigm where the development of a sustainable social law is crucial and where the principle of autonomy must be the cornerstone for its construction, in a venture to disentangle it from the productivist ideal and de-commodifying labour relations. Along the work we will propose some broad courses of action towards sustainable social law and will argue for the protection of non-productive spaces within the current legal system by reinstating the nexus autonomy-private life. To conclude, we will endeavour in a multilevel overview of the European and Spanish legal frameworks on working time, with the uncertainty to find any room for autonomy and, eventually evaluate the legal rationales that underly the legal frameworks, addressing its implications.