International

European Employment Commissioner Marianne Thyssen today presents her long-awaited plans for amendment of the Posted Workers Directive to combat displacement and exploitation. The SP is not happy with her proposals, as Euro-MP Dennis de Jong explains. "Thyssen proposes that posted workers should have equal rights in relation to social security and pensions, but only after two years," he says. "Even if the employer obeys the law to the letter, this means that for the great majority of posted workers their social security and pensions will be set at levels prevailing in the country from which they have come. As a result they’ll remain as a rule much cheaper than local workers. In my view a posted worker should be getting precisely the same rights as a local after at most six months. Otherwise displacement on the labour market will simply continue."

Integration and equal treatment are, in the opinion of SP Member of Parliament Sadet Karabulut, the answer to growing division and radicalisation in the Netherlands. “People from diverse backgrounds are sometimes fearful, they feel themselves to be misunderstood and excluded. It’s time to breathe new life into Article 1 of the Dutch Constitution. Everyone who lives in the Netherlands must be subject to equal treatment, in terms of both rights and duties, without regard to religion, origin, gender, colour of skin or sexual orientation.”