(22 November 2012) The governments in the EU concluded that legislation can be a burden for companies and especially small and medium-sized ones. This approach is part of a now familiar corporate and ideological agenda that includes the dismantling of public service and the deregulation of the labour market. To make matters worse the Commission started a consultation of Small and Medium-sized enterprises asking these companies to identify the most burdensome pieces of EU legislation with the underlying promise that the Commission would act to do something about it. The Commission selected labour legislation (working time directive) as well as an employers and trade union European agreement on parental leave in its pre-selected list. No justifications were given for selecting these pieces of legislation. One can only think that the Commission has continued its one-sided approach leaning its ears towards business. It should keep its hands off an autonomous agreement between the European social partners. In the past the Commission has already tried to weaken the application of health and safety legislation for small and medium sized businesses and a study of ETUI.
The intend of the Commission is clearly that workers in such companies, and we talk tens of millions of workers in the EU, do not deserve to have proper working condition and protection. Europe’s unions reject this. Please find below the letter of ETUC to Europe’s government leaders.
- The Commission website on “better” regulation
- The call of UEAPME the representatives of small and medium sized enterprises for more reform
- Log in to post comments
