EU: the Twenty-Seven divided over the right to strike and the principle of joint responsibility

Cost for joint responsibility.  Gathered on Tuesday and Wednesday, the social Ministers of the EU’s Member States had their first debate on the draft directive on the posting of workers (see our dispatch No.  120182).  The European Commission wants Directive 96/71 to be applied better, as it doesn’t currently solve fraud and social dumping.  The European Ministers support the measures proposed to improve administrative cooperation between the Member States and the information of posted workers.  However, the principle of joint responsibility in construction is dividing the Member States.  Indeed, Article 13 of the proposal provides that the contractor takes joint responsibility, when the employer is a direct subcontractor, as regards the salary of the posted worker.  Countries resisting this are the UK and some eastern European countries which, unlike 8 other countries (Austria, Germany, Spain, Finland, France, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands) do not have this principle in their national laws.  On Monday, this group used the same arguments presented by European employers, BusinessEurope, who claim that applying joint liability to the subcontracting chain will increase red tape, and therefore costs for businesses.