If, like the European Commission, you were asked to make proposals for 'modernising labour law to meet the challenges of the 21st century' what might be your priorities?

Clearly, labour law reform provides opportunities for addressing some of our most pressing social problems. Rates of poverty remain unacceptably high; avoidable industrial accidents and occupational illnesses are also at levels which we should not be prepared to tolerate; and discrimination on grounds of gender, ethnicity, age and disability is widespread.

A forward-looking programme for labour law reform would therefore include meaures to enhance social security rights and benefits for vulnerable groups, including part-time and temporary workers, to address the problem of undeclared work, and to ensure a right to work adapted to the changed conditions of the modern economy. It would prioritise the closing of the gender pay gap, by, for example, improving recognition of the right to reconcile personal, professional and family life, enhanced protection of pregnant and breatfeeding women, and provision of flexible childcare and care for dependent relatives. It would not merely outlaw discrimination, but include active measures to advance the position of people who suffer from it, guaranteeing equal opportunities for all. It would allow access not only to employment but to training and promotion, protecting against racial and sexual harassment and any other form of bullying or unfairtreatment.

Labour law for the immensely prosperous Europe of the 21st Century should ensure that all men and women share in this wellbeing at every stage of their lives. It should for example ensure their affiliation, including during periods spent raising children or in other unpaid occupations, to a social security scheme guaranteeing health and unemployment benefits and an adequate pension.

Instead of such a programme, what the European Commission is offering in its recently-issued consultation document on the subject is what is now termed 'flexicurity'. The word is, of course, an amalgam of 'flexibility' and 'security'. Designed to suggest greater flexibility and security for the workforce, in reality it would offer greater flexibility to the employer whilst inflicting greater insecurity on employees.

This will have a particularly deleterious effect on the position of those population groups who are already at a disadvantage in the labour market. Women, young people, and people from ethnic minorities, who already find themselves working in disproportionate numbers on temporary contracts and for low wages, will be its principal victims.

Throughout Europe there is already evident a tendency for employers to blackmail workers into accepting less favourable working conditions and conditions of employment, offering them the choice between mass redundancy on the one hand or longer hours and lower wages on the other. The Commission's proposals would legitimise and legalise such practices.

The Commission complains of "overly protective terms and conditions" in contracts, which can "deter employers from hiring during economic upturns". It argues that "stringent employment protection legislation...tends to reduce the dynamism of the labour market". And that "...making principal contractors responsible for the obligations of sub-contractors...encourages (them) to monitor compliance with employment legislation" which "may serve to restrain sub-contracting by foreign companies and could therefore present an obstacle to the free provision of services in the Internal Market."

Criticising the member states for introducing 'flexibility' only at the 'margins', the Commission points out that this produces a 'segmented' labour market, with core workers enjoying secure employment, while the low-paid and unskilled can be hired and fired at will. This is true enough, and it has long been a concern of those who recognise that well-organised workers can look after themselves, while vulnerable groups need the protection of the state and public authorities. The solution to this was problem was to have strong labour laws. Throughout the twentieth century, this has been seen as one of the cornerstones of social democracy, forming the basis of the postwar settlement which enabled us to rebuild our country and our continent.

The Commission's Green Paper turns this on its head. Instead of advocating a strengthening of rights for marginalised workers, it suggests that 'segmentation' be overcome by weakening the position of the rest of the workforce. Instead of harmonising us all upwards towards the best existing practices, the EU wants to make Europe into an employers' paradise, where such things as the right not to be dismissed without good cause are nostalgic memories; where you will no longer have the right to decline to do overtime; where participation in a clear, collectively-bargained set of agreements designed to protect workers from exploitation (and, incidentally, employers from sweatshop competition), are regarded as 'old-fashioned'.

Social security and labour law are, in any case, primarily national responsibilities which should remain under national control. It should be for the member states themselves to decide whether or not they want a more flexible labour law. The only possible excuse for interference from Brussels is if a member state operates so exploitative a regime that it gives that country's industries an unfair advantage in the internal market. The role of the EU authorities should therefore be limited to establishing minimum standards of worker protection, and to guaranteeing that the rights supposedly available to European citizens do not have to left at the workplace door.

Kartika Liotard is a Member of the European Parliament for the Socialist Party of the Netherlands, which is affiliated to the United European Left (GUE/NGL). Steve McGiffen is a former member of the secretariat of the United European Left and edits spectrezine.

See also

http:// www.spectrezine.org/europe/Erik.htm