Labour 'movement' finally wake up to services directive?

by N2N campaigner Tue Dec 06, 2005 17:36

Sitpu warns of EU risk to employment standards

Living and employment standards are under threat from a controversial EU directive being developed by the European Commission, Siptu general president Jack O'Connor warned today.
Mr O'Connor, who leads a union locked in a bitter dispute with Irish Ferries over its plan to re-flag its ships and replace its seafarers with foreign labour earning less than half the Irish minimum wage, said the proposed EU Services Directive will "accelerate race to the bottom" in Irish labour standards.
"It is no exaggeration to say that it is one of the most important issues to come before the EU institutions in the last twenty years," Mr O'Connor told a conference on the issue in Dublin.
The directive is aimed at liberalising the EU's internal market for services in a range of sectors including healthcare, laboratories, construction, distribution, regulated professional services such as architects, travel agents, estate agents and - of particular concern to unions - employment agencies.
The directive forms part of the Lisbon Agenda, the policy of making the EU a knowledge-based economy by 2010, with lower consumer costs generated by increased competition through the free movement of goods and services.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair told the House of Commons earlier this year that the directive would create at least 600,000 new jobs in the EU and add €37 billion to the economy.
Unions throughout the EU are particularly opposed to the 'country of origin' principle, which would allow a company from one member state provide services in another member state while still observing the laws of the country in which they are based.
This, unions argue, would mean companies from member states with relatively good labour standards could move to states with lower standards.
Policy-makers argue that restrictive practices and bureaucracy are preventing companies from one member state operating in another, thereby hampering competition and job creation. A particularly pronounced problem for small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs).
Mr O'Connor said the Irish Ferries plan was "a dramatic warning of the kind of onslaught we face on workers' pay and conditions if the proposed EU Services Directive goes through in anything like its original form".
The directive undermined "the thrust of the entire European project", which, he said, was to raise living and employment standards "to those of the best and most socially inclusive member states".
He added: "As it stands the directive serves the socially divisive agenda of driving down employment standards in whole sectors of the labour force in pursuit of 'cheapness' rather than 'competitiveness'."
Consultation on the directive is still ongoing and negotiaitions among member states about resolving the many technical issues that confront its implementaiton are are being advanced by Britian, which hold the EU presidency.
Labour MEP, Prionsias De Rossa, who organised the conference, said the Commissoner for Internal Market and Services, Charlie McCreevy, should acknowledge the weaknesses in what he called the "cowboy charter".
He said the incoming Austrian presidency provided a "glimmer of hope" becuase their Labour minister Martin Bartenstein has pledged to insist on an amended directive. "Reform of our social market must happen in a way that retains solidarity as a core value and isndeed is a necessity in a globalising world," Mr De Rossa said.