Document adopted
Adopted on
The ETUC stands firmly against social dumping and for a fair internal market
Adopted at the Executive Meeting of 15 and 16 March
The Executive committee of the ETUC in its meeting on the 15 & 16 of March in Malta discussed the new Services Package, including the European Services e-Card, as presented by the European Commission on the 10th of January.
The ETUC raises its concern about the impact of this proposal on fair competition and especially enforcement of workers’ rights in Europe. The ETUC is of the opinion that the proposal is exclusively focusing on making provision of services easier for companies, without addressing the real challenges of a fair internal market. In fact, we raised our demands, objections and comments already to the Commission in December 2016, to stop the initiative, that was clearly going in the wrong direction. As a result, the Commission partly adapted their proposal to take into account some of our comments – though insufficiently.
The ETUC today gives a strong message. We want Europe to finally act against social dumping and put the principle of “equal pay for equal work” into practice, as mentioned in Juncker’s “Triple Social A” speech. But we still see that the proposals in the “Services Package” are not contributing to achieving a fair Internal Market. The Internal Market is currently facing challenges of undeclared declared work, letter-box companies, bogus self-employment and other fraudulent practices. In such circumstances, we cannot allow any possibilities to lower enforcement of existing regulations.
The ETUC therefore rejects the proposal to introduce European Services e-Card in its existing form.
We nevertheless remain in favour to continue discussing proposals to safeguard enforcement of rights and obligations for achieving a fair internal market.
The ETUC moreover express our alarm that the Commission did not take on board the serious short-comings of the e-card proposal identified by the sectoral social partners from two of the main sectors concerned – construction and insurance. Such an approach puts into question the Commission’s commitment to make full use of the potential of social dialogue for making legislative initiatives fit for purpose.
Furthermore, we will continue our actions to get the best out of the current revision of the Posting of Workers’ Directive by closely following and influencing the process going on in the European Parliament and in the Council.
The ETUC is also disappointed over the poor level of implementation of the Enforcement Directive on Posting of Workers by Member States, and will continue to advocate for fight against and prevention of abuses of posting regulations.
We need a Europe where nobody is a “second class” worker. A Europe that is providing workers from all European Member States with the possibility to freely move and work by enjoying equal pay for equal work and fair working conditions.