I was interested that at the Conservative conference last week David Cameron made clear a future Tory government will try to opt out of the EU social chapter. Not that that’s new – as this story shows – though a few years ago they did apparently drop their hard line. They’ve stiffened themselves again, then.

As it happens we’ve not long ago had the European Court of Justice’s judgment in case C-307/05 Del Cerro Alonso confirming that social chapter measures to improve working conditions, adopted by the Community under article 137 of the EC Treaty, can include rules about pay. That’s more surprising than it might seem at first, since article 137.5 says, in terms,

The provisions of this Article shall not apply to pay

The particular legislation in question was Directive 1999/70 on Fixed term work, implemented in the UK by the Fixed-term Employees Regulations. In effect the ECJ said that the limitation in article 137.5 needs to be interpreted strictly: it simply means social chapter measures can’t actually set wage levels. It doesn’t mean they can’t require equality in all working conditions, including pay.

A defeat for the UK, this.

2007-10-11T10:40:00+00:00Tags: , |