Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-04-13-Speech-3-390"
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"en.20050413.24.3-390"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is a well-known fact that both workers and businesses from the new Member States are discriminated against. This discrimination starts with the way that businesses from the old Member States and other developed countries act as though they had never heard of labour legislation while operating in Central European countries. Certain Czech supermarkets, for example, are renowned for their medieval working conditions for check-out assistants, with people regularly being sacked during the three-month probationary period. There are many other examples of such abuses, with the ban on trade unions, which of course is not officially set down in writing anywhere, being particularly worthy of mention.
Shopping chains also adopt typically colonial attitudes towards their suppliers, and the long payment periods, advertising charges, shelf fees and extremely low prices they impose have already been criticised on numerous occasions. These practices are commonplace in Central and Eastern European countries, and it is also normal for little space to be allocated to goods from local suppliers, for suppliers to be required to provide monetary deposits before starting to supply goods, and for them to have to supply goods at any time of the day, seven days a week.
There are therefore a great many issues that remain to be resolved with regard to working conditions in the new Member States. At the same time, however, workers from the new Member States find it extremely difficult to gain recognition for their qualifications when they arrive in the old Member States, despite the fact that international agreements have been concluded on this matter. Trained nurses from the Czech Republic and Slovakia regularly work as trainee nurses in the old Member States and are paid accordingly, even though they are overqualified for such jobs. Similarly, it is rare for our skilled craftsmen to have passed any state-recognised exams, and this means that they are classed as unskilled workers in accordance with their wages, regardless of the work they have actually done. This is particularly the case in the building trade.
The recognition of university qualifications is also a major problem, and current legislation leaves much to be desired in this respect. By way of example, the three laws in force in the Czech Republic on the matter are far from perfect. It is high time that something was done about this state of affairs, and I am therefore calling on the European Commission and on Mr Verheugen to put forward a proposal outlining appropriate legislative measures. Thank you for your attention."@en1
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