ECJ ruling on employment law puts Cameron in a double bind

Anna Sonny, 11 September 2015

One of the pro-EU camp’s most often cited arguments for EU membership is that it is good for UK business and trade, because of access to the single market. But yesterday, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that workers without fixed offices should be paid for the journey time to and from their first and last customers, which is likely to be a burden for businesses, who are already facing higher costs because of the National Living Wage announced in Chancellor George Osborne’s budget earlier this summer.

This ruling would particularly affect – and most likely benefit – electricians, sales reps, and carers. Carers especially are not paid nearly enough for the work they do; but for companies, the prospect of shelling out more for workers who might be dishonest and use the travelling time to run their own personal errands is a concern. Companies will most likely have to spend more money on hiring more workers to make sure they are operating within the law.

The ECJ’s ruling has put Prime Minister David Cameron in a tricky position – on the one hand he must negotiate reform for the UK in Brussels, while also negotiating the fault lines between workers’ unions and British employers on the issue of employment law. The GMB, one of the largest unions, has already said it would recommend a ‘No’ vote if the British government undermined workers’ rights. Cameron needs to keep the unions happy, but he must also be seen to be on the side of British businesses, who will resent the ruling being imposed from Brussels. At the risk of alienating the unions, instead of arguing for full British exclusion from EU employment law, as previously planned, Cameron will instead argue in Brussels that employment law should be a national competence.

This turns the debate to the wider question of national sovereignty: the case was brought to the ECJ by a Spanish security firm – the fact that another EU member state can influence case law that then reverberates throughout the rest of the bloc will boost Cameron’s case for reform at home. This is all very well, but the debate over employment law would still be problematic to address domestically.