A majority of MEPs in the European Parliament's Employment Committee have shown their distain for workers' rights by giving the green light to a flawed report on posted workers.

With 30 MEPs voting in favour and 17 against, the Committee has granted a mandate for negotiations to begin.

GUE/NGL Shadow rapporteur on the issue Thomas Händel commented: "In Europe there is a top-tier of workers who are well paid in line with the principle of 'equal pay for equal work', and then there is a kind of subclass of slaves and labourers who are forced, for scandalously low wages, to move to another EU member state, only to be betrayed again by another minimum wage system that does not render them better off. This is not my idea of ​​Europe."

He continued: "The report from EPP rapporteur Danuta Jazłowiecka is more concerned with protecting the companies that send workers abroad than the workers themselves. Workers must receive wages they are entitled to by law and collective bargaining. We require clear criteria for companies and posted workers."

Händel also calls for a clampdown on bogus companies and for companies to be obliged to provide documentation on work contracts in all EU languages.