Rjan:
muckles:
Regardless of whether we’re in the EU or not, if we keep electing governments who believe in the power of the free market and deregulation, we will keep seeing them erode our rights as employees.
Most workers can already opt out of the WTD, something that was put into the regulations to satisfy the UK government.Indeed. Anyone wanting to work more than 48 hours already can do. The rules protect those who don’t want to, which is almost everyone.
In principle the rules might protect those workers who’d like to stay in the WTD, but the reality many workers opt out due to pressure and fear losing their job if they cause a fuss over opting out. They haven’t got the representation or knowledge to fight against unscrupulous employers.
Rjan:
muckles:
The use of POA’s in the RTD Working time directive that most of us are covered by has made a mockery of the idea of working a genuine 48 hour week average.
Companies have found ways of getting out of holiday pay, by using pseudo self employment or 0 hours contracts.Indeed. All problems due to Britain’s uniquely weak employment laws which it has full control over.
If staying in the EU would save us from this, we wouldn’t be in this position after 40+ years of membership, so it’s not about being in or out of the EU, it’s about a changing the political bias of the UK.
Rjan:
muckles:
And instead of the EU fighting this, they have increasingly come round to the UK’s way of thinking, with austerity for ordinary people in the Eurozone, while banks are bailed out, By wanting more free trade agreements, including CETA and TTIP that benefits multi national corporations, not the people who work for them or buy their goods, although the free trade deals that the UK government want won’t be much different.The other EU countries are of course not free of class warfare, and neoliberal ideology has influence at the EU level (and the global level) as they do at a national level. But I wouldn’t say the EU is failing to fight abuses of the rules as they are - every time a case goes to the CJEU, they normally end up telling British bosses to belt up (like they did with average holiday pay), and that’s why the bosses hate the EU, because having worked so hard to attack Britain’s labour laws since the 1970s and convince workers to vote for the right-wing governments that did it, they’re now being backstopped from doing so by EU labour laws.
Generally speaking, Britain is the stone in the shoe of the other EU countries which are much more social-democratic, and are predominantly in favour of fair regulation which promotes fair competition and steady business models, rather than deregulation which produces a race to the bottom and eventually crisis.
What about EU treaties being used in court against workers who want to stop companies flagging out operations to EU countries to reduce wage costs? What about companies using the courts to uphold EU freedoms to stop workers taking action?
What about TTIP a free trade agreement that would give multi-national companies even more power over democratically elected governments and therefore take more power away from the people? What about Macron wanting to remove hard won rights from French workers in the name of deregulation and global competition? What about austerity measures being imposed on Greece despite the people voting against them? What about austerity measures in place over many in the Eurozone causing years of mass unemployment, in many cases at levels far worse than we saw under Thatcher. The rest of Europe might have been far more social democratic 20 years ago, but really they’re moving the same direction as the UK, it’s only the UK had a headstart.
If Cameron had won the referendum, it would have been business as usual throughout Europe, while most people stood passively on the sidelines and Corbyn would have gone and the Labour party would have reverted to a slightly left of centre, pro globalisation neo liberal party sucking up to the bankers in the City of London.