MEPs are being urged by the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) to vote for equal treatment of workers in the same workplace – against employers bringing in workers from other parts of the world in order to pay less.
The European Parliament votes tomorrow (April 15) on the ‘Intra-Corporate Transfer’ Directive – which sets out the rules for the transfer of workers within a company to the EU from outside the EU.
It is believed there were about 10,000 such transfers in 2011 in member states that would apply the Directive (UK would opt out), but the numbers are expected to increase substantially if there was EU law to enable such transfers.
While the ICT Directive proposes minimum equal pay and the same working hours and health and safety conditions as locally employed workers, it does not prevent other important differences in costs and conditions.
For example, employers of transferred workers pay the pension and insurance costs of the workers’ home country which are almost always less outside the EU and within the EU. Furthermore, transferred workers would not be guaranteed the full working conditions and benefits of local workers agreed through national collective agreements and laws.
“The ETUC is strongly in favour of more, and more transparent, ways of letting in workers from outside the EU” said Luca Visentini, Confederal Secretary of the ETUC. “But migrant workers must be treated exactly the same as locals in the same workplace. Bumping up shareholder profits by importing cheaper workers is totally unacceptable to European citizens and taxpayers.”
Note – you will find at http://www.etuc.org/press/posted-workers-need-rights-be-properly-enforced#.U0vKpfmSzbQ an ETUC press release on the Enforcement of the Posted Workers Directive also being voted on in the European Parliament this week
