Intra-EU Mobility: Posting As Permanent Organization Of Poor Labour

An employee is legally considered as "posted" when working temporarily in a member state of the European Union other than its usual workplace. However, the temporary, neutral and legal status of posting tends to conceal the very nature of the process: organizing permanent mobility from south and east-European countries to the richer states, exerting of pressure on local bargaining standards (social dumping), giving legal appearances to illegal practices, underestimating the massive character of the phenomena. These are at least the first results of a transnational French-Portuguese research programme in the construction sector. From a sociological perspective more questions occur about how the legal rule of “posting is challenged. We distinguish here three different ways.

 

1) The first challenge is the existence of differences between legal and social rules. In fact the legal component is not opposed to the social component of the rule. It would rather be two sides of the same rule. There is not a peaceful legal side of posting and another conflicting social side.

2) The second extension of the legal rule we want to deploy in our research concerns the social regulations of conflict, agreements and collective action. They combine legal initiative, jurisprudence, the actions of the Labour Inspectorate, the tribunal but also the initiatives of the workers themselves, the unions and employer organizations.

3) The third shifting from the legal rule is related to networks. The first element concerns the Portuguese community in France. Posting that is based in large part on channels mounted on the initiative or with the help of employers who are former Portuguese employees. The second element of networks relate here to interpersonal relationships. Indeed, recruitment in Portugal is often effective because a friend or a colleague did already work for the same company.