Revision of the Posting of Workers Directive: Principle "Less Is More" Has Gone

Revision of the Posting of Workers Directive: Principle “Less Is More” Has Gone

Adding new rules to the posting of workers issue proposed by the European Commission in March would bring more complexity and over-regulation if adopted.

On 20th July, the Commission decided to follow up with the revision of the Posting of Workers Directive despite the opposition of 11 national parliaments. Issued yellow card has not stopped President Juncker ́s determination to add more bureaucracy and illegality when it comes to the posting of workers. Current problems with posting such as fake self-employment or non-payment of wages or social security by the employer in the posting country should be addressed by the Enforcement Directive 2014/67/EU which was due to be transposed only by June 18th this year. In coherence with the principle of evidence based policy-making that the Commission, Parliament and Council endorse, the effects of the implementing legislation should be awaited and evaluated in order to judge if any new measures are necessary. It seems that the Commission ́s principle “less is more” has already been forgotten. The proposal made in March damages exibility and balance represented by the current directive. It will create legal uncertainty by broadening the reference to the minimum pay rates to “general remuneration” as well as extending universally applicable collective agreements from the construction sector to all sectors.

We deem it not necessary as the problems to be tackled regarding working conditions mainly exist in the construction sector. Here again, better cooperation of the Member States and thorough inspections are needed. These are not the new rules which would solve the problem. The extension will only complicate life in other sectors. The new rules will also limit posting to two years, however posting in some sectors can be longer. The Commission once again has not taken into account the economic reality.

Last but not least, so-called principle of “equal pay for equal work” is misleading and simply not true. The more preferable conditions for posted workers will still be maintained and a German worker posted to Romania will certainly not receive salary according to general conditions applied in Romania. Applying these rules to 0.7 % of workers in the EU will not ensure the convergence of wages which must be done according to the market.