Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-05-13-Speech-1-067"
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"en.20020513.6.1-067"2
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"Mr President, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur warmly on the excellent way in which he has handled this piece of work. It was adopted unanimously in committee and, thanks to his adept handling of the matter, it seems set to be finalised through an informal conciliation under the Spanish presidency. That, as he has said, depends upon a clear commitment from the Commission that a declaration will be included in that informal conciliation to cover the situation of economically dependent or subordinate workers – not a very elegant description, but we all know which workers are meant.
We all know the problem: full-time permanent workers, the core staff in many enterprises around the European Union, are becoming less and less numerous, with concentric circles of less formal employment relationships surrounding that core. The current directive will extend insolvency protection to part-time and fixed-term contract workers, but what about temporary agency workers? What about self-employed workers who are in a position similar to employees but who do not have an employment contract? What about workers working zero-hour contracts which are becoming more popular in certain parts of the European Union? This is all part of a broad approach which, for us, is about balancing flexibility for work places, enterprises, and a degree of security for the workers working within and moving between those enterprises.
We, in the PSE Group, firmly believe that only in that way will all working people embrace the process of change. Otherwise a barrier will be put in the way of that process of change. The recent agreement on a directive on working time for long-distance drivers, which will include self-employed workers, shows us a possible way forward.
The Commission, as the rapporteur has said, must commit itself to completing the study it has under way, a joint hearing with Parliament and then legislative or other action to follow that hearing. For us as well this is about an overall proactive and socially responsible approach to the management of industrial change. We in the PSE Group have called since the beginning of this mandate for a modernisation of the law governing transfers and insolvency and, indeed, consultation in the form of the European Works Council Directive. We hope that the remaining elements of those changes will be introduced as soon as possible by the Commission.
I had a recent example in my own constituency where a company called Viasystems registered offshore before declaring insolvency, thereby avoiding the application of certain aspects of insolvency law. The subsequent Phoenix company which arose from the wreckage through a management buy-out shed over 500 jobs. Those people were made redundant, some of them with more than 30 years' pension and other entitlements which they lost completely. Clearly we still have a lot of work to do. This is a step in the right direction."@en1
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