Protectionism will jeopardise more jobs

The outcry over British jobs going to foreign workers is understandable if indeed the Italian company that won the tender for work at the Total oil refinery has a discriminatory policy (which would be illegal under European law) not to employ British workers.

This claim must be investigated urgently, as must allegations that the company concerned is circumventing British labour standards by undercutting pay, conditions and health and safety standards, which would also be illegal under European law (apart from one major loophole, of which more below).

But it cannot be claimed that only British companies should have been able to tender, or that the company should be obliged to take on only British citizens. As one national newspaper reminded us today, there are two million British citizens living and working in the rest of the EU, but only one million people from other EU countries living in the UK. A protectionist or discriminatory policy would rebound at put those British jobs at risk.

What can be and should be investigated is the wider claim that rulings from the European Court of Justice have created a loophole, underminding the intention of EU legislation that was intended to ensure that companies cannot circumvent national rules about pay and working conditions by bringing in employees from abroad employed under less stringent rules of another country. Foreign contractors who employ their own staff on a temporary project are bound by the EU's "posted workers" directive (not, as the Daily Telegraph said, the "postal workers directive!), which stipulates that the foreign employees must enjoy the same rights as local workers, not undercut them. I have blogged before about how certain court rulings have undermined one aspect of these protections, and I have also pointed out how small changes in the law can rectify the problem.

The expression "British jobs for British workers" means making sure that British workers are able to access good employment opportunities, equipped with the right qualifications, and without any discrimination against them. To take it further and argue that jobs should only be given to nationals of the country concerned would have dangerous consequences (e.g. you must be German to work in Germany, you must be Irish to work in Ireland, Spanish to work in Spain, etc) that would ultimately jeopardise British and other workers.

Parliament supports report to outlaw directory scams

After years of campaigning the European Parliament has finally adopted a devastating verdict against directory scams like the European City Guide. Maltese MEP Simon Busutill's report was adopted by a massive majority of 632 in favour and just 4 against, with only 12 abstentions.

The report strongly condemns the methods of directory scams and called on all EU countries to follow Austria's example in specifically outlawing the practises used by groups like the European City Guide. This can be helped by the Commission presenting draft proposals to extend the scope of the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive to specifically prohibit advertising in business directories unless these entries warn prospective clients that they are being offered a contract against payment. It also demands that the European Commission ensure that the all countries are correctly implementing and enforcing the Misleading Advertising Directive, which these scams clearly fall foul of, and include a "black" list of misleading practices - a measure which would help increase public awareness of these scamming organisations.

But this vote is just the start. We still need to convince the European Commission and Member States to play their part and I don't think anyone is naive enough to believe the scamsters will simply give up. But it is, hopefully, the start of a co-ordinated effort to ensure that such fraudulent business directories are put out of business.

Nonetheless, there may be still a lot of work to do but the message from the European Parliament is clear: scams like the European City Guide are unacceptable and illegal.

I must also pay tribute to Jules Woodell, who runs StopECG, and has worked tirelessly for years against the scams and deserves plenty of recognition for the huge part he has played in organising victims into such a strong group that they successfully campaigned for a report into the scams by the Petition's Committee.

Away from the issue itself, the 12 MEPs elected for UKIP in 2004, astonishingly for even them, managed to take four different positions on the Busuttil report. Ashley Mote abstained, Kilroy and Tom Wise voted in favour, Roger Knapman voted against and the rest didn't vote at all (though I understand Godfrey Bloom was kept home by a serious family commitment). I was also disappointed to see that Tory Edward McMillan Scott abstained on the report, although I hope that his vote was a case of just pressing the wrong button.

Parliament adopts report to tackle European City Guide scams

I was delighted this morning when the Parliament's Petitions Committee unanimously adopted a report by Maltese Christian Democrat, Simon Busuttil, on the European City Guide and other misleading business directories, a subject on which I have blogged on before.

I have been the Shadow spokesman for the Socialist group on this report. Simon has done an excellent job, and the report adopted by committee is a good one. In particular, the report calls on the European Commission to ensure that all countries in the EU are implementing and enforcing the Misleading and Comparative Advertising Directive adequately.

It also calls on the Commission to follow the example of Austria which has specifically extended its Unfair Commercial Practices legislation to business directories which use the methods of the ECG, and propose amendments to the Misleading Advertising Directive specifically to prohibit advertising in business directories unless prospective clients are clearly informed that such adverts are solely an offer for a contract against payment. Such a change would close the legal loopholes that are currently used by the European City Guide and other fraudulent business directories.

Above all, this report demonstrates that scams like the European City Guide must be stopped. It also, again, emphasises that this a problem that crosses borders and each year thousands of businesses, charities and voluntary groups across Europe are tricked into signing up to what looks like a perfectly innocent business directory. In reality they are tricked into a complex contact and face aggressive demands for money and no chance to cancel the contract.

The Busutill report, which will probably be debated and voted on the floor of the Parliament in December, is not the end of the matter. While we work to pressure the Commission to eradicate the problem through law, we must also use the opportunity to raise awareness to victims to whom the advice about the ECG and other directory scams remains the same: don't fill in the forms and refuse to pay them any money, and if people receive any suspicious forms from such companies they should rip them up. For more information, check this video link.


<

Debating Viking and Laval - why the ECJ rulings show we need to change the law to guarantee workers' rights

The Parliament today debated a report by Swedish Social Democrat Jan Andersson, looking at the effects of the recent rulings, in particular - Viking, Laval, Rüffert and Luxembourg - by the European Court of Justice. These cases have, rightly, caused a great deal of consternation amongst trade unions in that the court seems to have given a higher priority to the freedom to provide services to the right to join a trade union, negotiate and enforce collective agreements and take industrial action.

For instance, in the “Laval” judgment of 18 December 2007, the ECJ ruled that a service provider from another Member State is not obliged to respect local collective agreements that aren’t legally obligatory on third parties. The answer is surely to give collective agreements recognition in national legislation, as is done in many countries. Then, any service provider from another Member State would be obliged by law to respect national collective agreements when providing services in the country in question.

In the Ruffert case, the Court accepted a national court ruling to overturn a measure requiring companies supplying a public sector institution to pay a minimum wage, on the grounds that: a) the “Building and public works collective agreement" only applied to public contracts and so covered only part of the construction sector; and b) there was no evidence to show that construction workers on public works needed more protection than those on private works. The answer is surely to make such requirements binding also on the private sector. Indeed, it is surely an anomaly that it doesn’t!

In this same judgement, with reference to the Posted Workers Directive (PWD), the Court said that the collective agreement did not fix a minimum rate of pay in accordance with any of the procedures laid down in the Directive (e.g. by law, regulation or universally binding collective agreements). It had not been declared universally applicable, as required by the Directive, even though there is a system for doing so in Germany. Again, the answer is surely to declare the agreement to be universally applicable, as provided for in the directive.

Some have suggested that the problem could be solved by having a new Social Protocol, annexed to the treaties. This would be very welcome but, in practice, would require the unanimous support of all Member States and would hence be extremely difficult to obtain.

We should be clear that not much is to be gained from blaming the Court or suppose that the Court has an anti-social bias – after all, the court merely clarifies what the state of the law is – rather, we should focus our attention on rectifying the underlying legal situation. In other words, the Laval, Ruffert, Luxembourg and other judgments tell us that it is the law, not the Court, that is the ass, in allowing the court to make an extremely minimalist interpretation of the PWD. Given that the ECJ rulings reveal that existing laws are inadequate, it is up to us to change the law - broadening the legal basis of the PWD to include a reference to the free movement of workers and to ensure that the PWD does not allow companies to undercut wages and working conditions in host countries.

The Andersson report is a useful contribution to this controversial and highly legally complex debate. Amongst its conclusions are a recommendation that EU countries should properly enforce the PWD, and a demand that the Commission draft legislative proposals to deal with the legal loopholes thrown up by the judgments and to prevent any conflicting interpretation of the law. Indeed, this is a point that should be part of our campaign in next year's European elections; that we will use our power to vote against the new Commission if they do not include the necessary legislative proposals in their first work programme.

The Commission has made encouraging noises in this regard. In April, a Commission statement emphasised that the freedom to provide services did not contradict and was not superior to the right to strike, organise and join a trade union or negotiate collective bargaining agreements. We need to ensure that they follow up their words with action.

Bill Cash MP - whose sole activity in the House of Commons seems to be to campaign against everything to do with Europe - has had some success on the Conservative benches with his plan for a Bill that would oblige British courts to give primacy to British statutes over European law whenever there may be conflict between the two.

No doubt this is appealing to those who do not give much thought to the issues involved. But its effect would be to undermine the primacy of European law, which is one of the foundations of the European legal system.

The reason for the primacy of European law is that there is actually not much point in us agreeing with other countries on common rules if each country is then free to ignore them. What would be the point?

The whole purpose of having common rules for the common market or common environmental standards is that we all live up to what we agree in the European context. Divergent national rules would soon end the single market which successive British governments have proclaimed to be vital to our prosperity. Allowing countries to ignore agreed environmental standards and free-ride on the efforts of others is also not something to commend.

Nor should we forget that we rely on the primacy of European law in other countries. Britain won its our court case against France over its ban on British beef thanks to the primacy of European law. If French law had primacy, then they could have continued to ban our beef in complete violation of the rules we had agreed for the common market.