International

More than twenty percent of the paid employment done in Europe is informal, performed entirely outside the system of tax and social insurance, 'on the black'. This is damaging to our social security systems and undermines competition through the fact that a section of the market is completely corrupt, argues a proposal voted on at the European Parliament in Brussels on Wednesday.

Neoliberal thinking

"Combatting working on the black has our support," says SP Euro-MP Erik Meijer, "but we will nevertheless abstain on this report because of the neoliberal thinking that lies behind it. It's an attempt to play workers off against each other. Combatting working on the black is being used as a pretext to promote so-called flexibilisation of labour, that in reality undermines the labour market position of workers in Europe who are forced to compete with cheap labour elsewhere."