IR Notes

On 14 February, the European Council and Parliament reached provisional agreement on legislation establishing a European Labour Authority. The text still has to be formally adopted by the Council and the Parliament before it enters into force (see press release issued by the Council and the Commission). This new EU agency is intended to: 1° Facilitate access for employees and employers to information on their rights and obligations in cross-border labour mobility situations and access to cross-border mobility services. 2° Facilitate cooperation and the exchange of information between national authorities to guarantee the effective application of EU law in the areas of cross-border mobility and coordination of social security systems. 3° Performing analyses and risk assessments concerning aspects of cross-border mobility. 4° Helping States with capacity building via mutual learning, training and promoting of good practices. One of the main missions will be to co-ordinate and facilitate, at the request of States, joint workplace and/or social security inspections and checks in order to combat social security fraud and abuse in the areas of posting of workers and tackling undeclared work. The ELA will provide assistance to national administrations by offering a model for joint inspection agreements, organising coordination meetings and providing logistic and technical support, which may include translation and interpreting services. The social partners can report cases of fraud to the agency. However, the right to decide on and carry out an inspection, whether national or cross-border, will continue to lie with the States. Lastly, the Authority will be able to act as a mediator between the authorities of different States in the event of a dispute concerning the application of EU law, and in the initial phase, to issue a non-binding opinion. A second stage of conciliation is then provided for. The authority (which in fact has very little authority of its own) will have to convince States that it serves a useful purpose because, as the Council points out, States will only be taking part in the ELA’s activities on a voluntary basis.
> For further details, see the Commission’s Question-and-Answers press release, and the policy paper published by Notre Europe (March 2018).

Facilitating the right of free movement: Regulation (EU) 2016/1191 of 6 July 2016 on promoting the free movement of citizens by simplifying the requirements for presenting certain public documents in the European Union, came into force on 16 February. As a result, documents evidencing birth, marriage or certificates of good conduct issued in an EU country will no longer have to carry an authenticity stamp to be accepted as authentic by the authorities in another Member State. The regulation also abolishes the obligation requiring citizens in all cases to produce certified true copies and translations of these documents (see press release issued by the Commission).

• Social security and Brexit: The Council has adopted a draft regulation to protect the social security rights of British citizens who have settled in another Member State and of EU citizens who have settled in the United Kingdom (see press release issued by the Council).

Dual salary scale and age-related discrimination: In the middle of a serious budget crisis, Ireland adopted a new salary scale in the education field, enabling it to recruit teachers on less advantageous terms than those applicable to teachers already employed as such (salaries 10% lower). The new recruits had also been placed on a lower grade of the pay scale than before. Two young teachers impacted by this measure felt that they were victims of age-related discrimination (70% of their colleagues recruited in 2011 were aged 25 or under). The Court of Justice noted that they were “engaged in work comparable to that of the teachers recruited before” the new pay scale was introduced. However, “that difference in treatment therefore results from the date of recruitment of the respective group of teachers”. Consequently, the new remuneration conditions “are not based on a criterion which is inextricably or indirectly linked to the age of the teachers, so that it cannot be considered that the new rules establish a difference of treatment on grounds of age” (CJEU, 14 February 2019, case C-154/18, Horgan and Keegan).

• Alstom-Siemens: Following the European Commission’s decision, announced on 6 February this year, to veto the merger of the railway supply businesses of the French group Alstom and the German group Siemens, IndustriAll Europe argues that the time has come for “launching a debate on EU competition rules”. This, it says, should be “set high on the EU political agenda”, because these rules “date from the last century”. “However, revising does not mean getting rid of all rules and trade unions will oppose any attempt at deregulation” (see IndustriAll press release).

A slow increase in female employment in the railway sector: The European social partners in the railway sector have published their fifth report on the implementation of their Joint recommendations for a better representation and integration of women in the railway sector. The report says that the proportion of jobs held by women has been rising steadily for some years now. The average increase in the proportion of women workers between 2015 and 2017 was 0.5%. The biggest increase between 2015 and 2017 was observed in the United Kingdom (Merseyrail Electric) up 3.2% (from 20.4% to 23.6%), while the lowest was in France (SNCF) up 0.3% (from 20.3% to 20.6%).

Good Friday to become a half-day public holiday: The government has drawn up a bill enabling it to comply with the ruling pronounced on 22 January by the EU Court of Justice (IR Notes 112), stating that Austrian law, which grants Good Friday as a public holiday solely to workers who claim to belong to certain Christian churches, is against EU law. The solution adopted, which seems to satisfy nobody, is to make Good Friday a public holiday for all workers, from 2pm onwards. Although the government has presented this as a half-day holiday, the trade union confederation ÖGB, which claimed that the benefit of the public holiday should be extended to all citizens, regards this as laughable, because employees already often leave work early on Fridays (see press release).

• Strike ruled to be illegal: On 7 February, the Supreme Court ruled that the strike at the Same Deutz Fahr Žetelice factory, which produces 400 combine harvesters a year, was illegal. The employees went on strike after turning down a wage increase offered by the employer. The Court ruled that as the collective agreement was still applicable, the employer had discharged all of its obligations. Consequently, the employees could not legitimately take strike action.
  > see further details in the full article.

• Abolition of the grace period: Parliament has adopted a bill that abolishes the three-day period of grace that has to elapse before workers can receive sick pay. From 1 July 2019 onwards, the employer will have to pay wage compensation to an employee who is on sick leave throughout the 14-day period leading up to the time health insurance benefits start to be paid, and no longer only for the period commencing between the fourth and the fourteenth day, as was the case previously.

> For updates on matters involving legislation and case law, see the Flash reports on Labour Law for January 2019.

Social guarantees: The facilities management group ISS (480,000 employees) and the UNI Global Union federation have issued a joint statement aimed at safeguarding jobs under the global divestment plan announced on 10 December 2018 by the group, which is selling off its businesses in 13 countries, including 6 EU countries. ISS has agreed to apply Directive 2001/23 on transfer of businesses within EU countries, while also endeavouring to transfer the employment contracts of the employees concerned in non-EU countries, and to avoid imposing any forced redundancies (see UNI Global Union press release).

• Database: On 23 January, the European Commission announced an update of the database established with the ILO on transnational company agreements, which contains 321 agreements signed with 164 companies, covering 9 million employees. This tool allows searches to be carried out by theme, by company or by sector.

Employment implications of the Paris Climate Agreement: A report published by Eurofound emphasises that the impact of the transition towards a low-carbon economy, as provided for by the Paris Agreement, will be positive for the EU overall, though with substantial variations from one sector of the economy to another. The positive impact on employment is due in large measure to the investments necessary to bring about this transition, and to the impact of the decline in expenditure on imported fossil fuels. The countries that look set to witness the largest rises in employment are Belgium, Spain, Germany and Greece. Poland appears to be the only country in the EU that will experience a slightly negative impact.

• Impacts of plastic on human health: The European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) draws attention to a study performed by a coalition of NGOs, led by the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) (see full report or its executive summary), which for the first time evaluates the impacts on human health throughout the plastic lifecycle. The study argues that “plastic is a human health crisis hiding in plain sight” (see ETUI comment).

In this section, our aim is not to influence your vote in the forthcoming European elections, but to inform you of initiatives seeking to open up a debate on the future of the European Union or to put forward proposals here and now.

> In this edition, in contrast to the initiative presented in our previous issue, which sought to open up a debate, with the aim of finding a way out for the Union from the impasse in which it currently finds itself, we are presenting a manifesto. Although the manifesto itself opens up a debate, this time it also puts forward “concrete proposals, in particular a project for a Democratization Treaty and a Budget Project” seeking to reduce inequalities within Member States, without relying on money being taken from ‘virtuous’ countries and given to those who are less so. The manifesto has been signed by more than 113,000 people.