The European Labour Authority (ELA) does not currently have the necessary powers or resources to fulfil its potential to stop employers from exploiting vulnerable cross-border workers, a report published today by the European Commission concludes.
The ELA was launched in 2019 to tackle the abuse of the 10 million people in the EU who work in other countries, who too often face non-payment of wages, social security fraud, health and safety breaches and poor-quality accommodation.
Today’s evaluation says that since then the ELA has “made progress” with “varying levels of achievement” in its work, but concludes that “ELA potential has not been fully developed also due to limitations in the mandate.”
The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) is calling for ELA to be given powers to access and process data equivalent to those held by EUROJUST and the European Banking Authority, which would allow it to carry out investigations on its own initiative to identify and sanction fraudulent employers. The European Parliament has voted to strengthen ELA.
Commenting on today’s report, ETUC Deputy General Secretary Isabelle Schömann said:
“This evaluation shows that the European Labour Authority clearly needs more powers and resources to tackle the huge scale of exploitation faced by cross-border workers.
“The ELA has already helped to improve coordination between member states to prevent cross-border labour exploitation but it can only touch the tip of the iceberg under its current mandate and too much of its time is spend on raising awareness of rights rather than enforcing them in practice.
“The ETUC calls on the Commission to act according to the recommendation and bring forward legislation to give ELA the powers to carry out its own investigations and impose its own sanctions.
“A strong ELA is needed more than ever at a time when the Commission’s massive deregulation waves, which paint workers’ rights as ‘burdens’, risk encouraging employers to ignore the EU’s own laws.”
