It is clear that the employer de-regulation drive is intensifying at EU level and some workers rights emanating from EU directives are under threat.
John Monks ETUC General Secretary said: “Some in the Commission and its periphery are proceeding as though the financial crisis has not happened, as if new relations between state and market are not necessary. It has been widely recognised that the financial sector needs greater regulation to avoid future similar crises. Politics must reassert their primacy over markets. The Commission is going down the wrong track.”
http://www.etuc.org/a/6611
It is important that these developments are linked together and to note the increasing influence on Labour Government policy from neo-liberals such as Mandelson. The scale of the deregulation agenda can be gauged from the recently released BERR document, The Government’s Forward Regulatory Programme, which contains the agency workers decision on page 81. The programme states that it ’brings a new openness and clarity to the regulatory process and will enable decisions on new regulations to be taken in the context of the cumulative burden of the Government’s regulatory programme on business and the wider economy. This is more important than ever in the current economic environment.’
http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file53203.pdf