European TUC general secretary John Monks urges “European legislators,” in light of the most recent outrageous ruling by the European Court of Justice, to revise the posting of workers directive to clarify and safeguard its original meaning.

If he is referring to the European Parliament, then he is barking up the wrong tree.

Legislators are representatives who initiate laws and the European Parliament does not have this power.

Its role is to revise draft legislation proposed by the unelected and unaccountable EU commission and, once a directive is finalised and issued by the commission, it is up to the European Court of Justice to rule on disputes arising from its operation.

Unlike any other court, the European Court of Justice has a mandate to remove obstacles to the operation of a free market within the EU and to promote ever-closer union within the bloc.

And it has been single-minded in doing so in its judgements handed down in response to employers’ demands to prioritise their right to make profits over trade unionists’ right to defend their living standards.

The latest scandalous rejection of workers’ rights is in response to a complaint by the EU commission against Luxembourg for insisting that national legislation on maximum and minimum working periods, minimum paid holidays, minimum rates of pay, health and safety, non-discrimination and so on should apply to posted workers is unreasonable and an additional burden on foreign service providers.

The Luxembourg case follows hot on the heels of the Laval, Viking and Rüffert cases, which undermined individual states’ protective legislation in the name of free provision of cross-border services.

The Laval case involved a Latvian construction company working on a school in the Swedish town of Vaxholm, which refused to sign a collective agreement and provoked trade union action to isolate the site.

The European Court of Justice ruled that, important though the right to take industrial action is, it is trumped by the right to trade freely.

The Rüffert case involved a Polish firm winning a contract in Germany and refusing to comply with wage rates agreed between the Lower Saxony government and the German building workers’ union.

The European Court of Justice ruling was that freedom to trade took precedence over collectively agreements.

The Viking case was about the owners of Finnish-flagged ferry Rosella deciding to register it in Estonia, thereby annulling the collective agreement with the Finnish seafarers’ union.

Once again, the European Court of Justice ruled in favour of the employer.

Even to those slow on the uptake, it must dawn that there is a pattern developing here and it is a pattern that points to a race to the bottom – acceptance of the worst pay and conditions as the norm across the EU.

This fits in with the neoliberal policies adopted across the continent and backed by all governments, whether nominally conservative or social-democratic.

It dovetails completely with the attacks on the welfare state, pensions provisions, the 35-hour week and other progressive conditions.

Overturning this employer offensive will not be won through EU institutions but by campaigns in all member states demanding non-implementation of these vicious anti-working class rulings.