CoR members adopted by overwhelming majority the opinion on the revision of the Posting of Workers Directive, drafted by PES Group member and Chair of the CoR's Social Affairs Commission (SEDEC) Yoomi Renström, Mayor of Ovanåker (Sweden).
This makes the CoR the first European institution to position itself on a sensitive proposal contested by no fewer than 11 Member States earlier this year, which had recourse to the so-called “Subsidiarity Control Mechanism” (or yellow card procedure), arguing that wage matters are a national issue and that therefore, the subsidiarity principle is breached by the Commission.
The proposed targeted revision of the rules on the posting of workers introduces changes in three main areas: remuneration of posted workers, including in situations of subcontracting, rules on temporary agency workers, and long-term posting.
The adoption of the opinion by the CoR was a major victory for the PES rapporteur, who remained attentive to highly divergent concerns throughout the elaboration process and managed to produce a coherent proposal.
"The Posting of Workers Directive governs which of a host country's terms and conditions of employment a service provider established in another Member State is required to apply to workers posted in that host country. As such, it does not aim to harmonise conditions between the Member States", affirms Yoomi Renström, reminding that it is not possible, under the Treaty rules on the freedom to provide services across borders within the EU and the Rome I Regulation, to regulate at Member State level which employment law conditions are applicable in a posting situation.
"This is why a common definition of the rules applicable to the posting of workers can be better achieved at EU level", insists the rapporteur, pointing that "the directive itself does not in any way affect the Member States' exclusive competence when it comes to decisions on pay issues within the framework of their respective labour market models".
While endorsing the principle on which the Commission's proposal is based, i.e. that the same work at the same place should be remunerated in the same manner, the CoR formulates a number of key demands:
- Bring the time limit beyond which the law of the host country must apply in full to a posted worker down to 12 months;
- Create a European support fund that ensures the swift return to their countries of origin of those posted workers abandoned by their employers, with no access to assistance or support as a result of cascade subcontracting practices;
- Set up a European register placing undertakings that post workers under an obligation in all Member States to declare the posted worker at the latest upon commencement of the provision of services;
- Establish a European directory of occupations and vocational skills in order to protect posted workers without recognised qualifications, whose skills are very often deliberately underestimated by the employer so as to justify a lower level of remuneration;
- Consider the possibility of requiring a minimum period of employment of a worker in the posting Member State before he or she can be posted if a tendency should arise for companies to be set up with the express purpose of bogus posting.
