Dutch public news broadcaster has gotten its hands on a joint draft proposal (PDF) by EU bigwigs Herman van Rompuy and José Manuel Barroso on how to strengthen the EU economies in the wake of the bankers’ crisis (they don’t call it that). As The Wall Street Journal sees it their proposals “soften” the stricter German ones that had been put forward a few weeks earlier. For those of us not belonging to their target audience however these proposals, if enacted, will mean further restrictions on our ability to organise ourselves, earn a decent wage for a decent day’s work.
For example, there should be a “review of the wage setting arrangements to enhance decentralization in the bargaining process” and member states should “ensure wage restraint in the public sector”, not to mention “further opening of sheltered sectors by measures taken at national level to identify and remove unjustified restrictions on professional services as quotas and closed shops” and “overhaul of commercial legal systems to reduce red tape”, more “labor market reforms”, “tax reforms” and finally, “aligning the retirement age with life expectancy” and “reducing early retirement schemes” should also be priorities for member states.
In short, we should have less room to organise ourselves to negotiate the price of our labour, if you work for the government or in a public organisation you can expect even less sympathy from the EU than from your own government, less protection against (unfair) competition, less legal oversight of business, less protection against being fired, more money for fat cats and less for us and finally the chance to work until we die as retirement ages keep creeping up.
Welcome to the downward spiral. Not mentioned: tackling the obscene bonuses and salaries the economic wreckers we laughingly call bankers still “earn”.