According to a draft opinion adopted on Monday 19 September, the Committee of the Regions (CoR) would support the European Commission approach for revising the legal framework for the posting of workers but is expected to recommend a continuous posting to 12 months instead of the 24 months proposed and currently in force.
Members of the CoR committee responsible for this issue, and who adopted this draft opinion that will be submitted to a vote at the December plenary, were particularly supportive of the controversial Commission proposal presented in March (see EUROPE 11507), to revise the 1996 directive on the posting of workers. They supported the fundamental change proposed, which seeks to substantially reduce the difference in pay received by local and posted workers.
The amendment recommendations they adopted are particularly related to the question of the timeframe in which a posted worker can be subject to the legislation of the host country and therefore cease to be considered as a "posted" worker, in application of the provisions of the Rome I Regulation. The Commission proposed a 24-month period, the same as that contained in the 883/2004 Regulation on coordinating the social security systems.
The draft CoR opinion, drafted by the chairman of the competent committee, Yoomi Renström (PS, Sweden), stipulates, however, that these two timeframes should not coincide because there is no imperative reason for these to correspond in the two acts. The directive on the posting of workers should instead limit the length of stay of the same posted worker to 12 months as planned or what actually transpires.
CoR members also called for the cumulation rule to be abandoned, according to which they are required to add up the periods of posting for the different workers which correspond when executing the same work in the same workplace. They believe that this is potentially discriminatory and impossible to apply. (Original version in French by Jan Kordys)