Europe loses when it legitimises low wages
Beyond Notre Europe | 05/03/2008 
Article by Wanja Lundby-Wedin and John Monks, respectively president and general secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation paru dans The Financial Times, 2 March2008.

Decision-makers in ancient civilisations sought answers from an oracle, an infallible authority who gave wise counsel. The most important, the Delphic oracle, reputedly fell into a trance and spoke in riddles, which were interpreted by priests. In the modern European Union the oracle is the European Court of Justice. National courts seek its wise counsel, but sometimes it appears to work in unfathomable ways.

Last December the court struck a heavy blow against "social Europe" - the concept of a Europe that treats its workers and poorer citizens fairly - in a landmark judgment on the so-called Laval case, concerning Latvian workers on a Swedish building site.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008


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In view
Social protection, a luxury item?
Notre Europe's viewpoint | 19/02/2008
The recent « Viking » and « Laval » rulings by the European Court of Justice are worrying for trade unions in Europe. In the first ruling, the Court argues that the right to "re-flag" (in this case re-flaging Viking Line's Finnish-registered ships as Estonian in order to free itself from the terms of the collective agreement with the Finnish union), and therefore the right of the company to establish in Estonia was paramount. In the second ruling, it ruled that a Swedish trade union had no right to force a Latvian company operating in Sweden (Laval) to pay its workers a locally determined minimum wage.