Potential for harmonization of national labor legislation to European standards

The article reveals the potential of harmonizing national labor legislation to European standards in the context of Ukraine's European integration. In the context of the European integration of Ukraine, the constitutive principles of the realization of the right to work should be formed on the dominant principles: ensuring the maximization of legally defined labor rights and guarantees, the optimality of opportunities for their implementation, and effective prevention of violations of the labor rights of employees. It was determined that such constitutive principles primarily include the harmonious balancing of the productive and protective functions of labor law, which will contribute to ensuring the interests of employers and employees; the basis of reforming national labor legislation should be the observance of established social standards in the field of labor and the clear implementation of the Constitution, which does not allow narrowing of the content and scope of existing rights and freedoms when adopting new laws; reforming should take place in an evolutionary way, and only the provisions of national legislation that do not meet the rights and interests of employees and employers and the modern demands of the market economy should undergo radical changes; in the process of developing the new Labor Code of Ukraine, the practice of the International Labor Organization and the provisions of the legislation of the EU and countries with transition economies must be used to ensure optimal harmonization of national labor legislation with international and European legal standards in this area; it is expedient to shift the focus of legal protection of labor relations from the purely legislative level to the level of contractual regulation, primarily collective agreement, with the permissible use of social partnership mechanisms with the involvement of employers and trade unions; the basis of the reform of the national labor legislation is the elimination of all manifestations of discrimination against employees on the basis of race, article, political or religious beliefs and other circumstances provided for by the Constitution of Ukraine, with the preservation of increased conditions for the protection of the labor of women and young people and the specific prohibition of child and forced (mandatory) labor It is concluded that the right to work is one of the fundamental rights of a person, which provides him with a decent life and the opportunity to grow professionally and spiritually. Namely, European integration processes allow to raise the realization of this right to a completely new level, according to international and European legal standards.