200+ construction workers protest subcontracting before European Commission

 
 
"Subcontracting exists all over the world, it is true, but we must not forget its growing presence in Europe.” 


This was the statement made by Geneviève Kalina, BWI Regional Representative for Europe, as a response to a protest action on 7 June before the European Commission in Brussels, Belgium. She emphasised the importance of BWI participating in the said event to show its strong support for the European Federation of Building and Wood Workers (EFBWW), and its European affiliates. 


The protesters, chanting “same rights, same wages for all!”, called on the European Commission to swiftly take action to limit subcontracting, ban all agencies under the posting and go for direct employment. Several parliamentarians from Denmark, France and Italy also supported the trade unions’ demands for strong and swift measures to prevent the rising number of work-related accidents, such as the incident at Borealis in Belgium, and in the context of the Grand Paris. 


For several years now, subcontracting has swept Europe, particularly the region’s construction industry, leading to more worker exploitation.  BWI has been consistently fighting subcontracting at the international level. Asserting that “enough is enough!’, BWI said that labour subcontracting deprived workers of social protection, and worsened the precarity of work, which resulted in unsafe and unhealthy working conditions.