Brussels, 05/05/2009
Some time ago the ETUC sent a letter to the President of the Commission, Mr Barroso, to ask him to withdraw this text, but we received no reaction. The ETUC, together with the European Transport Workers' Federation, also wrote a letter to the members of the European Parliament calling for this text rejection.
John Monks, ETUC General Secretary declared: ‘I am glad that the European Parliament followed the ETUC recommendation in the interests of road safety and the health and safety drivers. We welcome the decision to include self employment drivers. The opposite would have led to the social deregulation of road transport, paving the way to unfair competition between false independent and regular workers. Moreover the environmental aspects would have also been neglected. This is good news for Social Europe, and we hope that next time, the Commission consults European social partners before proposing texts which could have negative impacts on workers’.