Posted-workers guide to irk MEPs

The European Commission will face strong criticism next week (6 June) when it issues guidelines aimed at standardising member states’ implementation of a law on rights of workers posted temporarily to second countries.

The guidelines are said to replicate elements of the controversial services directive that were voted down by the European Parliament in February last year.

The 1996 posting of workers directive covers workers’ rights on issues such as rest periods, paid annual holidays, minimum rates of pay, health and safety, terms and conditions of employment of pregnant women and sex discrimination. According to the law, minimum rules in force in the host country must be applied to workers posted from other EU countries.

MEPs strongly criticised the Commission last year for attempting to ‘circumvent’ the co-decision rights of Parliament by introducing provisions from Articles 24 and 25 that were dropped from the services directive into the guidelines. The provisions, they say, would weaken host country supervision of workers’ rights.

German Green MEP Elisabeth Schroedter, who last year reported on the guidelines for Parliament’s committee on employment and social affairs, wanted to ensure that countries such as Germany, France and Austria would retain existing powers to keep tabs on whether companies are fulfilling their duties towards workers.

Supporters of the Commission’s guidelines argue that countries have been using their powers to freeze out foreign workers, often from new member states. A Commission official said that companies must not face obstacles in cases where workers are legally employed.

'Social dumping is not a question when workers are legally employed. This always concerns ‘black’ [illegal] labour,' she said.

According to the official, much emphasis will be placed in the guidelines on cross-border enforcement mechanisms. 'The communication is about administration of the exchange of information when a company wants to post workers,' she said.