What we do

The project Fair European Labour Mobility 2 is set to develop and expand the counselling network of European trade unions in order to support posted workers in the EU. We run trade union counselling centres in the sending countries Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, which cooperate closely with the trade union counselling centres in the receiving countries Germany and Austria. The coordination in Germany is responsible for the project management.  

What is Posting?

Posted workers are employees sent by their employer to another EU country to work there on a temporary basis. During their posting abroad, they remain employees of their employer and generally still have social security cover in their country of origin. 42% of posted workers work, according to the European Parliament, in the construction industry, while 22% are in the manufacturing industry, 14% in education, health as well as social work and 10% in the field of business services.

The freedom to provide services constitutes the legal framework of posted labour. Accordingly, European enterprises can offer their services in other EU Member States and send employees there to carry out the work. In order to prevent discrimination, the EU adopted its Posting of Workers Directive in 1996 to ensure that posted workers are subject to the minimum employment legislation of the country in which they work, refering to the following aspects:

• minimum rates of pay
• maximum working hours and minimum rest periods
• minimum paid annual leave
• the conditions of hiring out workers through temporary work agencies
• health, safety, and hygiene at work
• equal treatment of men and women

The German Posted Workers Act, which transposed the EU Directive into national law, stipulates that in some sectors the respective collectively agreed wage rates should be paid. In practice, however, posted workers are often paid less than regular employees. In Germany, according to an estimate by the European Commission, they receive up to 50% less pay. The revision of the Posting of Workers Directive adopted in May 2018 includes changes. This revision became effective in 2020. Until then, EU members were called on to transpose the reform into national law.

Posted workers only work for a certain time in Germany; they often do not speak sufficient German and have few local contacts. They are particularly vulnerable to exploitation due to the form of posting. In practice, employers often cheat these workers out of their wages; they don’t give them their full holiday entitlement and often fire them at short notice – without, therefore, respecting the right of termination. Employers often do not register their employees for social insurance: the A1 certificates required for this are forged. Posted employees here in Germany can receive help at advisory centres run by trade unions, such as at Fair Mobility, or in their respective countries of origin in the information centres of Fair Working Conditions.

Every year, more and more workers are posted from one EU Member State to another to work for a limited period of time on the basis of the EU free movement of persons. In 2019, there were 3 million postings under Article 12 and 1.36 million postings under Article 13. After the pandemic started in 2020, still 3.6 million A1 certificates were issued, currently the numbers are rising again.

The situation of posted workers on the labour market remains particularly precarious. Due to the short-term nature of their employment and their high mobility, they are particularly vulnerable. In practice, we observe massive violations of applicable labour rights, wage and social dumping.

However, counselling posted workers is a complex area. These workers fall under labour laws restrictions in the sending and in the receiving country. Therefore, a transnational counselling approach is essential. Legal bases in both countries – often even in several countries – have to be clarified and authorities in different countries have to be contacted. This is only possible with good cooperation between the counselling centres involved.