Vote on labour policy highlights political and national differences

Brexit will lead to a decrease in the support for a more flexible labour market across the European Union. In fact, over the decades, the United Kingdom government opposed several EU initiatives aiming at stepping up worker protection, as they implied higher costs for businesses as a whole.

The debates regarding the flexibility of the labour market have long haunted the different European institutions, which constantly hesitated about the positions they should adopt while trying to satisfy countries with heterogeneous views on the question.

One of the most prominent issues is related to the posting of workers across the EU, as the current legislation is seen as providing incentives to Western European companies to hire Central and Eastern European workers at the expense of the locals. CEE workers can afford lower wages, as the cost of living in their home countries is much smaller, which leads to the frustration of the Western workers who cannot afford such wages due to higher living costs in countries such as France or Germany.

In this report, VoteWatch Europe tracked the level of support at the EU level for a stricter regulation of the labour market, with a special focus on posting of workers and the use of atypical contracts.

ESO: Background information: Posting of Workers Directive (EP: EPRS: Briefing: EU Legislation in Progress February 2017) http://www.europeansources.info/showDoc?ID=1221081

---