UNISON General Secretary, Dave Prentis, will tomorrow (21 December) petition the European Parliament in Brussels to reconsider a Directive which would allow private companies to drive down pay and conditions. The petition relates to the “unfair treatment” faced by women workers when public services are privatised or contracted out.
The Services Directive leads to a significant weakening of women’s employment rights, argues UNISON. Companies registered overseas do not have to abide by UK employment legislation, but are regulated by the law of the country in which they are registered, which could be weaker than UK law.
And the situation could be made even worse by proposals to change the way other rights are protected. The minimum wage, pension entitlements and working hours could be undermined by the directive, as it weakens the protection given to workers under the Posting Directive. The Posting Directive covers workers posted to work in another country for a temporary basis.
For example, a labour inspectorate wanting to check whether a Portuguese worker posted to the UK was receiving the minimum wage would apply to the Portuguese authorities who would then ask the Portuguese company for the necessary proof. But the company would then have up to a year after the ending of the contract to provide the documentation, which would render any effective control of the minimum wage meaningless.
Dave Prentis said:
“Privatisation of our public services has caused enough discrimination against women. This latest directive could make matters much worse as private companies compete in a race to the bottom. We could find service providers moving their headquarters to the EU country with the lowest protection to ‘bid’ for temporary contracts to exploit this loop-hole. And, as usual those more adversely affected will be women, in particular low paid part time women.
“We believe that this contravenes the spirit of all European equality legislation and undermines all existing trade union anti-discriminatory practice. “
ends
The Petition is a legal process whereby the union is asking the European Parliament to examine, as a matter of urgency, the implications of the Directive on Services of General Interest. The union argues that this weakens women’s employment rights by the implications of the country of origin principle for UK employment and anti-discrimination law and by the weakening of the Posting of Workers Directive.
The country of origin principle states that the provision of a service on a remote or temporary basis should be regulated by the law of the country of origin of the service provider rather than the country in which the service is being delivered.