With today’s vote, the European Parliament calls for an EU framework to tackle abusive subcontracting chains and fraudulent labour intermediaries that are undermining workers’ rights and fair competition across Europe. The European Commission must now bring forward binding legislation as part of the Quality Jobs Act to stamp out the abuse.
Workers and their unions EFBWW, ETF and EFFAT have been mobilising to call out the exploitation and abuses they face in long and opaque subcontracting chains and labour intermediation that are too often used to shift responsibility and cut labour costs. Evidence from across Europe shows that workers employed through subcontractors and intermediaries are more likely to face lower pay, excessive working hours, unsafe conditions and obstacles to enforcing their rights.
The Quality Jobs Act must therefore include binding EU legislation that ends the abuse, by:
- Ensuring joint and several liability throughout the subcontracting chain
- Limiting subcontracting chains length to 1 or 2 levels & promoting direct employment
- Regulating labour intermediaries
- Ensuring more effective and frequent labour inspections
Esther Lynch, ETUC General Secretary, said:
“This vote must spell the beginning of the end for the abuse of subcontracting chains and labour intermediation by fraudulent companies and, often, criminal gangs. The Commission must now urgently bring forward binding legislation, as part of the Quality Jobs Act, to end the abuse and exploitation of workers, caught in subcontracting chains and controlled by gang masters, once and for all.
“The Parliament recognises the serious problems with the status quo. A shadow economy within the single market has been allowed to grow. The very worst actors are given impunity, dragging conditions down for everyone by withholding wages, forcing workers into dangerous conditions, or housing them in appalling accommodation.”
