According to a working paper published by the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) on Monday 8 May, wages for Polish, Hungarian and Czech workers have gone down compared to those for German workers since 2008.
Trends in this area quite clear. In 2008, wages earned by Polish workers were 33% of the average wage for their German counterparts, as opposed to 29.3% in 2015. The same trend is observed in Hungary and the Czech Republic, where the gross national wage has respectively fallen from 31.9% to 25% and from 34.9% to 30.9% compared to the wage in Germany over the same period.
The ETUI also points out that this trend is the opposite of that observed between 1990 in 2008, when a real convergence was observed. Esther Lynch, the confederal secretary at the ETUC explained, “One reason for the growing east-west inequality within the EU is that collective bargaining between trade unions and employers has been weakened in central and eastern Europe, whereas it remains strong in Germany”.
Reviewing “European Semester” recommendations
In response to EUROPE, Bela Galgoczi, the author of the paper explained that this trend did not just constitute a problem for countries in the East but for the whole of Europe because increases in wage disparities would have an effect on workers’ mobility in the future, particularly because of the phenomenon of posted workers, who would be tempted to work in the west.
Mr Galgoczi pointed out that in this context, often the member states most affected by the phenomenon of posted workers were not so much the host countries but the countries from where these workers were leaving because it gradually created a labour shortage.
He also explained that the areas being explored by the European Commission in the social field (see EUROPE 11775) were going in the right direction. It was necessary, however, he argued, to revise the recommendations made as part of the European Semester because they were currently a factor in helping to hold down wages. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)