Andrew Brons has issued a press release and tabled a question to the European Parliament after being contacted by a number of ferry workers from Yorkshire who had recently lost their jobs.
It transpires that economic migrants from non-EU countries are being employed by some ferry companies on wages well below the minimum wage and it is because of this British ferry workers are losing their jobs.
In his press release, the MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber said:
"There is an anomaly in national and European Union legislation that allows ferry companies to pay workers from the Third World less than the minimum wage. This has resulted in many companies replacing EU employees with workers from the Third World. Whilst workers who have previously been legally resident for five years in the territory of a member state must be paid the same as nationals of that member state, employees who have been recruited as seafarers without that period of residence can legally be paid much less than the minimum wage.
"This problem was recognised by the Commission as long ago as 1998 but no European Union law has been forthcoming to solve this problem. Ideally, the United Kingdom should be free to pass its own legislation. The inability of the EU to deal with the matter makes it more important that the United Kingdom should withdraw from this organisation completely and regain its legislative sovereignty.
"It is bad enough that British workers find that their wages are driven down to the minimum wage by the presence of EU workers from low wage economies. It is much worse that British and other EU workers are driven out of jobs by the ability of their employers to recruit workers prepared to accept Third World wages."
Andrew also tabled this question to the European Parliament:
"Does the Commission have any plans to recommence legislation to resolve the problem of non EU employees of ferry companies being paid below the minimum wage of the relevant member country?
"This practice involves the shameless exploitation of workers from the non EU state and it results in employees on ferries from EU states being replaced by employees from outside the European Union."
