Welshwife. 28th 13.26
"I would be interested if the person who said that she did not find the workers rights good from within the EU could tell us in more detail what has he means as I have always thought they were much better than what workers had previously."
This extract might help.
'Currently, posted workers are already subject to the same rules as host Member State employees in certain fields, such as health and safety. However, the employer is not obliged to pay a posted worker more than the minimum rate of pay set by the host country. This can create wage differences between posted and local workers and potentially lead to unfair competition between companies. This means that posted workers are often remunerated less than other workers for the same job'.
Corbyn has been giving the impression during his speeches to stay and fight from within the EU for Workers Rights and has indeed mentioned the Posting of Workers Directive on numerous occassions, he says we will stop this by being stronger working together 'from within the EU'but in fact there are already moves to 'Reform the Posting of Workers Directive' anyway and the link of 8th March details this.
'From now on, all the rules on remuneration that are applied generally to local workers will also have to be granted to posted workers. Remuneration will not only include the minimum rates of pay, but also other elements such as bonuses or allowances where applicable. Member States will be required to specify in a transparent way the different elements of how remuneration is composed on their territory. Rules set by law or universally applicable collective agreements become mandatory for posted workers in all economic sectors. The proposal also gives the possibility to Member States to provide that subcontractors need to grant their workers the same pay as the main contractor. Nevertheless this can only be done in a non-discriminatory way: the same rule must apply to national and cross-border subcontractors.
The proposal will also ensure that national rules on temporary agency work apply when agencies established abroad post workers.
Finally, if the duration of posting exceeds 24 months, the labour law conditions of the host Member States will have to be applied, where this is favourable to the posted worker.
These changes will provide better protection for workers, more transparency and legal certainty and ensure a level playing field between domestic and posting firms while in full respect of Member States' wage-bargaining systems.'
europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-16-466_en.htm
It was widely acknowledged that in fact the UK has better employment laws and regulations than those of the EU. We accepted all EU legislation but went beyond them. Some put spin in the opposite direction but failed and the truth is the only campaigning rhetoric that stood up to fact was the possibility/off chance the evil Tories changed any of the existing employment laws, usually accompanied by the lone voice of Priti Patel. There was no evidence this would/could happen!
This is why the Labour heartlands thought in a different way to the Westminster bubble , left or right of politics. They know the truth because they have to deal with it.
