Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-11-30-Speech-4-139"
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"en.20001130.2.4-139"2
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"Many tens of thousands of women in the European Union who provide domestic help in the informal sector of the economy would no doubt be delighted that we are dealing with the regulation of such activity, if only they knew. This report certainly has the advantage that it exists. However, I am not very comfortable with some of the wording in it. In my own country of Luxembourg, we are in the normal situation of making no distinction between manual workers, whether they work in industry, in households or anywhere else.
Is this what we want? I think not. We should therefore be wary of making such statements which could leave us open to abuse.
They are entitled to a statutory minimum wage and to membership of the health, accident and pensions insurance schemes. In short, there is no discrimination against them in relation to other employees. That, of course, almost sounds like a perfect world when I read all the proposals for possible exceptional arrangements that are listed in this report.
I see no reason, for example, why the working conditions of domestic staff should be in any way untypical.
It is actually incredible that, in the twenty-first century, we should still be recommending that Member States guarantee the right of domestic staff to social security cover and adequate pensions. I am equally astonished by the demand that prices and costs in respect of domestic work be adjusted at national level to take account of individuals' financial resources.
The call for simplification of administrative formalities for employers, on the other hand, makes good sense.
In Luxembourg, we decided to carry out this type of simplification within the framework of the national employment plan. It works very well and is a model which I, in all modesty, would recommend.
The demand that domestic services be made tax-deductible to reduce the difference in cost between employing undeclared and declared workers is also a step in the right direction.
National governments should be magnanimous here, so as to ensure that employees and employers have an incentive to stop offering and engaging in illicit work.
May I also warn against granting migrant women work permits for domestic work. The gangs who smuggle people into our countries would be delighted and would naturally ensure that all the women they intended to bring into EU countries illegally were declared as domestic staff."@en1
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