Third times the harm for workers
28th regime a risk to standards across Europe.
For the third time, the European Commission is attempting to ram through a designation allowing businesses to opt out of national labour law, undercutting health and safety standards, trade unions and decent employers.
Through the proposed “28th regime” the Commission has reignited the desire of some companies to lower standards through the classification of some as “innovative”, echoing efforts made in the 2008 Small Business Act (withdrawn in 2013) and 2014 Single-Market Company (SUP) proposal (withdrawn in 2018).
Refusing to accept the opposition to such a dangerous move, this initiative best encapsulates the deregulation and anti-worker agenda of the second von der Leyen Commission.
As with many of these harmful proposals, this is based on a wilful misinterpretation of the Draghi report, The future of European Competitiveness, which has led to this proposed creation of a new EU-wide legal status for “innovative” companies, which would only reduce the rights of workers. Unions have known such a proposal would be presented, with the desire to deregulate in several areas of law including company law, enforcement law, insolvency law, financial market law, tax law and labour law made very clear by von der Leyen.
On June 30th the INL report of the European Parliament (drafted by rapporteur from S&D René Repasi) outlined that such a proposal may not require unanimity from the European Council should Art 352 of the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union (the reason why the two previous attempts failed) be bypassed.
This only heightens concerns relating to this and other facets of the proposal and report:
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- Danger of downgrading different existing protections for workers as well as trade union rights
- Bypassing the need for information/consultation of workers representation
- Circumventing national legislation on labour rights
- Opening the door to potential tax avoidance
- Lowering the threshold of workers’ rights through amending national legislation
The proposal also includes provisions on employee stock options, an important facet for professionals and managers, where workers should have the possibility to obtain a share of the business. Through this poor proposal, even well intended changes may lead to additional risks in workers being a part of the success and failure of businesses and the impact this may have to existing workers’ rights on wages and conditions.
In addition to the parliamentary report, the Commission is also launching a number of public consultations relating to this proposal, which Eurocadres will be contributing to.
While we work with MEPs to curb the harmful effects of this proposal, we also ask how national governments can be happy with this rushed initiative fundamentally altering their existing labour markets, and will seek to work with national ministers who oppose these changes.