France vows to tackle 'new form of social dumping

Seconding workers abroad is a new form of social dumping in Europe, say the governments of Belgium, France and the Netherlands.EU employment ministers will discuss the issue on Monday.The construction industry is most affected, where a long chain of subcontractors facilitates fraud.Workers from southern or eastern europe are not properly registered with authorities.Werner Buelen, Political secretary, European federation of building and woodworkers said:“Some companies have made it a business model in providing precarious, cheap workers. And they use all kinds of abuses for example fake self-employment, they use letter-box companies, they deduct parts of the wages or they simply do not pay the social contributions or they fraud with taxations. “Manuel is a wielder who left his native Portugal for Belgium eight years ago.His work contract was not recognised by Belgian officials.The construction worker told euronews: “The work contract I had did not match my pay checks. None of my salary was declared or paid into my back accounts. It was stuffed into envelopes and paid little by little.”The French government wants EU law on this area toughened up.One idea is to increase the number of inspections that firms are subjected to.