Thread by @TerryReintke

I just watched “Sorry We Missed You”. The story of the family from Newcastle touched me a lot.

And it made me think: A lot of EU laws have been portrayed as useless red tape in the debate around Brexit, but in fact they give much needed protection to workers.

Some examples:

Working time: Ricky Turner (the lead character in the movie) has to work overtime. 14 hours a day, 6 days a week regularly.

This has unbearable consequences for his health, his family, but also the security of him and others.

Working hours like this are illegal according to EU Directive 2003/88/EC. It gives EU workers the right to rest of at least 11 hours in any 24 hours and to work no more than 48 hours per week.

Unfortunately, the UK has opted out of it.

ec.europa.eu/social/main.js…

Zero hour contracts: Abby Turner (the other lead character) has to work on a so-called “zero-hour” contract which is used to undermine social and labour protection. It makes her job and remuneration unpredictable.

Just recently the EP adopted a report that calls for an end of “zero-hour” contracts. That is only a first step, but it can help to put an end to this practice and growing precariousness on the labour market.

europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document…

Bogus self-employment: Despite the fact that Ricky is clearly dependently working for his employer who is organising his assignments and timetables, he does not get the legal protection of a employee-employer relationship.

Often such practices are possible because of a lack of enforcement of existing laws: Bogus self-employment, precarious working conditions etc. That is why the European Labour Authority has just kicked of its work for better controls.

ec.europa.eu/social/main.js…

Posting of workers: In order to stop the undermining of collective agreements, fair wages and labour protection, the EU has recently concluded a revision of the directive on posting of workers.

ec.europa.eu/social/main.js…

A lot remains to be done: We need common EU-wide minimum standards for social and labour protection so that workers cannot be played off against each other. The EU has to be better here.

But one thing is clear: Brexit is not the solution to these problems. Quite the opposite: Brexit is a neoliberal project and threatens the protection that UK citizens have through existing EU legislation.

Excuse me. Indeed, the language was not precise:

The UK is currently making use in a generalised way of the opt-out option in the directive in its legal provisions.

This is the source: eurofound.europa.eu/sites/default/…