The Charter protects rights such as to work, to just conditions of work, to safe and healthy working conditions, to freedom of association, to social security, to benefit from social welfare services etc.
Member-states have to submit reports every two years concerning the implementation of the articles of the Charter in their legal systems. The implementation is supervised by the Committee of Social Rights, composed of the representatives of the Ministers Committee and by the Intergovernmental Committee, which prepares the Ministers Committee decisions. Finally the Ministers Committee makes recommendations to member countries that are not in compliance with the Charter?s requirements.
The European Social Charter was the first international document to recognise the right to strike.
The Charter also has struggled to keep pace with social changes, such as the increasing role of women in the workplace, rising rates of divorce and out-of-wedlock births, and changing conceptions of the role of the elderly and disabled in society.
Critics argued that the conservative standards in the Charter were out of step with progressive trends in society and that the member states only needed to sign a small number of provisions in order to become contracting parties, thereby undermining the force and purpose of the Charter.
In 1991, a Protocol Amending the Charter was adopted by the Committee of Ministers that improved the reporting and enforcement procedures of the Charter by specifying in detail the procedures for submission of reports and their review by various committees.
No Contracting Party to the EuropeanSocialCharter or Party to the Additional Protocol of 5 May 1988 may ratify, accept or approve this Charter without considering itself bound by at least the provisions corresponding to the provisions of the EuropeanSocialCharter and, where appropriate, of the Additional Protocol, to which it was bound.
This Charter shall enter into force on the first day of the month following the expiration of a period of one month after the date on which three member States of the Council of Europe have expressed their consent to be bound by this Charter in accordance with the preceding paragraph.
For the purpose of applying this provision, the term "family of a foreign worker" is understood to mean at least the worker's spouse and unmarried children, as long as the latter are considered to be minors by the receiving State and are dependent on the migrant worker.
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