International

This week I am going to present substantial amendments to a number of legislative proposals from the European Commission. These proposals concern the opening of the European labour market for personnel from multinationals and the admission of seasonal workers. In both cases the Commission is looking to open the door too wide, giving workers from outside the EU the chance to take jobs which could go to people within the EU. As long as unemployment remains high, even continuing to grow in a number of member states, we need to be cautious over the admission of workers from third countries.

It is only logical to make it possible for multinationals to bring in management level staff, as they already do. The European Commission’s legislative proposal, however, goes much further than that. In addition to managers, specialists and even interns from outside Europe would have to be admitted, with no requirement to examine whether there are people within the EU who could do the same work. Moreover, the Commission defines ‘manager’ and ‘specialist’ extremely broadly. In my view, interns certainly don’t belong in this proposal, as you cannot compare them to employees. ‘Managers’ should include only executive personnel, and specialists must be subject to an extremely restrictive definition, because who isn’t some kind of specialist nowadays? Only if this refers only to people with real professional abilities and a long period of employment within the multinational would I be in favour of simplifying admission.

The proposal regarding seasonal workers is also, in my view, far too broadly formulated. For example, the Commission wants to introduce a sort of multiple work permit which would cover a number of years. You could work a maximum six months in a year, but for three years in succession, again without any examination of whether there is anyone in the EU who could do the work. There are also proposals to make transferring to other, more permanent work possible, which I do not expect to see approved.

The most treacherous articles of both proposals are those in which it is stated that only generally binding agreements on pay and conditions would be applicable. We have already seen that the absence of such agreements in European countries which lack them leads to enormous deterioration in conditions of employment. That’s why I’m happy to support proposals from the European trade unions which build upon the applicability of all such agreements and customary conditions of employment.

At first sight all of this seems pretty dull fare, but the Commission is busily slicing our labour market into ever smaller pieces, with different conditions for every category of worker. As the SP team in the European Parliament, our slogan is ‘no deterioration in employment conditions and no unfair competition from workers from outside Europe’.