Equal pay for equal work, says Macron in Salzburg

According to official site of Wage Union, French president Emmanuel Macron met the Austrian chancellor as well as the Czech and Slovakian prime minister in Austria on Wednesday. Some analysts say that the French president is speeding up the division of V4 countries: while Czechs and Slovaks may still be involved in discussions, he has already turned his back on Poles and Hungarians.

The latest meeting focused on the employment abroad of workers from low-pay Eastern EU member states, i.e., “posted” workers. Mr Macron said:

– The practice that companies pay the taxes and social charges for posted workers of their home country rather than the target state is a betrayal of the EU’s principles, creates a negative wage competition and social crises (in the east and the west alike).
– The current situation boosts populist trends across Europe and undermines people’s confidence in the EU.
– He urges a reform: he suggests that the payment regulations of the target country should be applied for posted workers.

According to the report of Slovakia’s Pravda however, PM Fico did not accept Macron’s proposal on the EU guidelines yet, claiming that it would deprive Slovakian workers of their competitive edge, in other words, that they are satisfied with lower wages.

Although Macron and Fico seem to have raised the same issue, i.e, that workers coming from abroad (from the Eastern member states to France and from outside the EU to Slovakia) take away the local people’s jobs and push wages down, Slovakia’s problem would still not be solved by the EU document in its current form since it would only bind the citizens of EU member states.

Czech newspaper Hospodářske noviny quotes Czech PM Bohuslav Sobotka’s statement that living standards need be levelled in the various regions of the EU because German and Austrian companies only pay 30-40 per cent of their home wages when it comes to their Czech employees working in the Czech Republic. The conclusion is that the pressure on multinational companies must be increased, otherwise the wage inequalities can never be eliminated.

Felvidek.ma portal also refers to PM Sobotka’s statement that higher wages must be required from Czech and/or Eastern European companies as well as from Western corporations operating in the former Eastern Bloc.