In an op-ed published by EUObserver just before the consultation, Therese Svanström, president of the Swedish Confederation of Professional Employees (TCO), wrote: ‘Most importantly [sic] … is the fact that the EU lacks legal competence in the area of wages.’ Thus, rather than convincing arguments about why precisely EU action would be bad, the piece primarily reflects a fear of losing control and a defensive stance, asserting that ‘well-functioning systems for collective agreements simply cannot be ordered from Brussels’. [...]
The commission has made clear that it would not oblige countries which do not have a statutory wage to introduce one, thus making most of the contenders’ arguments null and void. The framework should focus on the objectives, in terms of coverage (the percentage of the labour force receiving at least the minimum wage) and level (most probably expressed as a percentage of the median wage), not on a specific type of instrument.
Svanström hypothesises that ‘what goes up, might come down’, implying that the EU could use the framework to lower wages in times of crises. The history of EU social policy rather teaches us that its regulations are always minimum standards. So these cannot be used to lower national standards and what is already a minimum cannot be lowered. [...]
Twenty-two EU countries currently have a minimum wage under 60 per cent of the median (the benchmark recommended by the International Labour Organization). An EU framework could matter a great deal for those countries, creating political pressure and institutional incentives to improve wages and even, in the medium term, engender upward convergence.
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