EU ROUGH JUSTICE

A recent ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has delivered another blow against social and employment protection measures and in favour of the rights of employers. The EU institution decided in the Rüffert case that a German public body was not entitled to include a clause in a public works contract requiring contractors to pay Polish workers the same rates as those set down in German collective agreements. The liquidator of the contractor claimed damages arguing that the German principality law was incompatible with the freedom to provide services contained in Article 49 of the EC Treaty. The court agreed and went on to rule that the Posted Workers Directive – which sets out the minimum terms and conditions for foreign workers – was not applicable because the relevant collective agreement did not apply to the whole country or to private sector contracts. Richard Arthur of Thompsons solicitors warned that the Ruffert case went further in terms of undermining collective bargaining rights at work than previous judgments in the Laval and Viking cases. In the Laval case, the ECJ ruled that a trade union campaign in Sweden to stop a firm paying poverty wages was not ‘proportionate’, and had not been taken for ‘reasons of overriding public interest’. In Viking, a Finnish ferry re- flagged its ships to Estonia to exploit cheaper Estonian labour. The ECJ found for the Viking Line, stating that EU rules on the free movement of goods, labour and capital gives protection against worker’s actions in the interests of ‘freedom of establishment’, while insisting that the right to take industrial action is a ‘fundamental right’. Richard Arthur warned that the Ruffert case could open the doors to widespread social dumping which meant the introduction of low pay and poor conditions through bringing in sweated foreign labour. “The ECJ's stance that minimum standards would undercut the competitive advantage of employers such as the Polish contractor in the Ruffert case is completely misguided. “Employers are already protected by the EC Treaty's non-discrimination principles and they should not be protected if they seek to obtain competitive advantage by undercutting collective agreements in the member states in which they seek to operate,” he said. NO TO LISBON Should the proposed Lisbon Treaty and its Charter of Fundamental Rights come into force we would rely on the court to rule in disputes regarding the interpretation of any of the Charter’s provisions. The court’s findings would have force throughout the EU. The ECJ has already made it clear in a number of cases that: “it is well established in the case law of the Court that restrictions may be imposed on the exercise of fundamental rights, in particular in the context of a common organisation of the market”. It is clear from these precedents that the ‘fundamental rights’ that would be conferred on us by the Lisbon Treaty would not be fundamental at all but could be varied or restricted in the interests of a ‘common RMTnews :: may 2008 :: www.rmt.org.uk 8 RMT News looks at how controversial rulings by the European Court of Justice could undermine your rights at work ROUGH JUST