Democratic participation rights in the workplace are a central demand of the labour movement but have been increasingly contested in recent decades. The institutions and agencies of the EU investigated in our research are not only characterized by the absence of externally de'ined and controlled labour rights. In fact, from a constitutional perspective, they rather appear as premodern legal monsters. In this paper three aspects of this labour regime will be discussed: how to gain a foothold in interest representation in a union-aversive environment, the nexus between unionism and professionalism, which is important for understanding the mechanism of political participation in this 'ield, and 'inally the institutional framework and legal constructions which led to a situation where labour rights must be reclaimed from scratch. This working paper documents selected 'indings of the pilot study funded by the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), which allowed us to explore this largely unexplored 'field of ‘Interest representation and labour relationships at the supranational level’ and develop our current and ongoing project with a broader focus on labour in supranational organizations.
