Cosmin Boiangiu, Executive Director of the European Labour Authority (ELA) has presented the framework for action on social aspects of cross-border road transport at the EMPL committee of the European Parliament.
It is a well-known fact that there is a lot of abuse in this sector of road transportation such as fraud, undeclared work, bogus self-employment, unacceptable working conditions and working hours, etc. As a result there is no fair competition between operators, road safety is in danger and adequate social protection is non-existent.
Within the mandate of ELA, it was very important to work together with all stakeholders, including the social partners and the national labour authorities. ELA started several working groups and they agreed on four challenges.
Sufficient information for drivers and operators about the mobility package legislation (1), sufficient administrative cooperation and exchange of information between national authorities (2), sufficient resources, support tools and training for cross-border checks and inspections (3) and the overarching language barriers (4).
Based on their findings they made a framework with three key principles: joint and sustained effort, coordination and cooperation, synchronisation of action.
The framework is structured around three pillars: information, cooperation, and enforcement and this within the scope of the mandate of ELA.