The Spanish law that imposes to the terminalisti to participate financially to the harbour pools of labor is under the view-finder EU



Today the EU commission has sent to Spain an opinion motivated with respect to the imposition regarding the terminaliste societies that operate in various Spanish ports to participate financially to the capital of the private companies that manage the supply of harbour labor, preventing they to resort at the market in order to hire harbour workers unless the force job proposed from such private companies is inadequate or insufficient.

The EU commission has denounced that terminalisti of other States of the European Union that intend to operate in the Spanish ports they could be dissuaded making it because of the barrier represented from the impossibility to retrieve the necessary labor on the market. Brussels has remembered that the motivated opinion constitutes the second phase of the infraction procedure and that if Spain will not react within two months in satisfactory way to the ultimatum of the Commission this last one will be able to submit the issue to the Law court of the EU.

The EU commission has emphasized that the Treaty EU prohibits any national provision that, also not discriminatory based on the nationality, can hinder or return less attractive the exercise of the freedom of plant guaranteed from the Treaty. Therefore - it has found Brussels - even if the pools of labor generally they offer an effective formation to the workers and constitute an effective instrument equally for the employers, would not have to be used in order to prevent to qualified staff or societies to supply cargo handling services or in order to impose to the employers a force job of which they do not need.

I decree legislative Spanish 2 on September 5, 2011 previews that in the ports of general interest, between which Barcelona, Algeciras, Valencia and Bilbao, private societies, called SAGEP (Sociedad Anónima de Gestión de Estibadores Portuarios are constituted), people in charge to hire harbour workers and to on hand place such labor of the terminalisti. Such norm imposes moreover that all the companies that wish to supply cargo handling services participate financially to the capital of a SAGEP. The terminaliste enterprises can be exempted from such obligation single in cases many limiting and if they only supply services to if same. Moreover, independently from the fact if the terminalista company participant or less to a SAGEP, such society must resort to workers assumed and supplied from a SAGEP. The terminalisti can hire workers on the market, but only for a turn of job and only if the labor offered from a SAGEP sufficient or is not adapted.

The EU commission has evidenced that, second an own appraisal, is other instruments, as the policies and the stiff strategies to assure the formation of the harbour workers and to improve their competences, that they are faces to reach the declared objective of protecting the workers without to oppose itself to the principle of plant freedom and therefore more they are adapted for this objective. Moreover the stiff policies to increase mobility of the workers between the ports of a same nation or between various Countries, so as more flexible employment contracts, can have a positive effect on the question of harbour workers.

In the Spanish right - it has found the Commission - the terminaliste societies that intend to settle in a Spanish port of general interest are held to retrieve resources sufficient financial institutions to participate to a SAGEP and to hire workers of a SAGEP to conditions that are not under their control. This - it has concluded Brussels - alters unavoidably the structures of the occupational policies and of assumption of the companies and such changes can determine serious imbalances between the enterprises and to have remarkable repercussions financial institutions, being discouraged the terminaliste enterprises to settle in Spanish ports of general interest.