Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-09-21-Speech-4-131"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20000921.4.4-131"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
".
The plague of undeclared work is spreading through all the Member States of the Union at an alarming rate, especially in the less developed regions. This grim form of exploitation is afflicting ever larger social groups as the result of poverty, which is spreading like wildfire, and also as the result of the increasingly indifferent laws of the market and the unaccountability of big business, which provokes and exacerbates it.
The anti-labour economic and social policy pursued by the European Union is a determining factor in the rise in undeclared work, which is growing much faster than the mainstream economy. The hidden economy is becoming more and more important in the Member States, allowing companies which evade tax and national insurance payments to rake in huge profits. The constant harping on at summits and in other Union institutions about the need to reduce the famous “non-wage labour costs” is encouraging companies to implement this reactionary approach on their own initiative, by generalising undeclared work and extending it to a surprisingly large number of workers.
Intense efforts to make the market and terms of employment more flexible, the barrel of the gun of unemployment and poverty pointed at workers’ heads, the huge influx of immigrant workers to whose illegal status the system turns a blind eye and which are the booty of exploitive capitalist mechanisms which plunder their labour in sweat shops in order to boost their profits, create the "unhealthy" social conditions which force workers to take employment with no social cover, exiled from any trade union activity or government protection. Health and safety conditions, terms of employment and working relations are dictated solely by employers, who take grossly unfair advantage of workers’ needs and minimal negotiating skills and make a tidy profit from their long working hours.
Immediate measures are needed in order to wipe out this plague – measures which include the strictest punishment for employers and companies using this form of employment and which do not put the sacrificer and the sacrificed on an equal footing. We need agencies and institutions to keep a close eye on companies. Special protection must be given to the groups which are easy prey to unaccountable employers: the young, women and, more importantly, immigrants.
Undeclared work only has a positive impact on employers, or rather their profits; it has multiple negative repercussions for both workers and society as a whole. Less employment, lower national insurance revenues, lower tax revenues and, at the same time, increased social and public-sector spending.
Unfortunately, the European Parliament report under discussion goes in completely the wrong direction; it basically backs employers and calls for even more neo-liberal measures on the job market, ostensibly in order to wipe out undeclared work. It basically advocates legalising and generalising undeclared work, and hence completely upsetting employment relations, at the expense of all workers, which is why we are voting against it."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples