Workers can be posted anywhere in EU without trade union veto after landmark court decision
Posted, December 18, 2007 @ 00:00
In a landmark decision this morning, the European Court of Justice ruled that trade unions have no right to force workers legally posted from one EU country to join collectively-bargained agreements in another.
The judgment arises from a claim by a Swedish-based Latvian company which was forced into bankruptcy after trade unions blockaded its workplaces in an attempt to force its Latvian workers to sign up to the Swedish union's collective agreement.
The court said that the unions were in fact blockading the single market, preventing the free movement of people as well as services. As long as the Latvian workers were protected in their own country there was no need to force them to be protected in their host country.
Philip Bushill-Matthews MEP, Conservative Employment Spokesman in the European Parliament, says: "It is good to see the European Court of Justice upholding a key principle of the Single Market: the Trade Union movement should stop trying to block progress in this area but should learn from this judgment to move with the times."