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A small thread on why free movement actually empowers workers compared to a regime of tight immigration control.
If you benefit from free movement, you can freely change employer, and bargain higher wages by threatening to leave.
In contrast, in a regime of immigration control, you may depend on your employer for your stay permit, which puts you in a much less favourable position. You may accept lower wages, and be more likely to undercut native workers.
Ultimately, the potential for wage dumping linked to immigration depends on national regulations and enforcement. Wage dumping is actually less of a risk with free movement than with employer-sponsored permits or undocumented migration.
Surely as an EU citizen entitled to free movement, you have more rights than a third country national whose legal status is precarious. Therefore, the power relationship with your employer is more balanced.
I am not saying that immigration doesn't open avenues for exploitation, but in the EU the "posting" of workers in the framework of the free movement of services is a bigger risk than free movement per se.
Important to highlight that the UK has systematically fought efforts to fight wage dumping in the EU. Why should they behave differently outside the EU?
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I totally understand this but...
...Is it due
a) to free movement or
b) to collective bargaining coverage having collapsed *way before* the big wave of migrant workers from 2004 onwards?
a) to free movement or
b) to collective bargaining coverage having collapsed *way before* the big wave of migrant workers from 2004 onwards?
France systematically extends the outcomes of collective bargaining to whole sectors, making their terms enforceable. The United Kingdom doesn't.
When the Swiss labour market was opened to EU workers, trade unions asked (and obtained) measures to protect wage standards: more labour inspectors, more possibilities to extend and enforce collective labour agreements. Since then, coverage has increased. surfdrive.surf.nl/files/index.ph…
