Facing business challenges from the Posted Workers Directive

John Weekes

07 Jun 2024 — 2 min read

As we have seen, one of the main challenge with the Directives, and particularly the Enforcement Directive, is that each country was allowed to introduce the legislation into its own legal system in the way it chose. Coupled with the lack of a central definition of ‘posted worker’ to fall back on, we are left in the position where, in principle, everyone who works across borders in the EU (and indeed many coming into the EU) may be a posted worker subject to the legislative requirements.

So, although there is an overarching principle aimed for in the Directive, we are currently left with 31 different national processes to follow if compliance with the Directives is going to be achieved, each requiring a slightly different set of data, with different data retention rules and a different enforcement regime, plus a labour law and collective bargaining agreement landscape which is unique to each location.

While this issue may have been manageable for expatriates and project workers (where the volumes are less, there is a longer lead time before posting and the number of host countries tends to be less), the inclusion of many business travellers within the scope of the legislation makes compliance extremely complicated. Of course, many business trips are taken with very little advance warning (particularly as, within Europe, there are no immigration obstacles) and most companies have no central oversight of business travel, and certainly not in advance of a trip taking place.

So, broadly, the challenges most organisations face in dealing with what is, on a trip by trip basis, a fairly straightforward task are:

Volume – hundreds or thousands of business trips
The quantity of data required to be submitted across different host locations
The availability of that data, centrally, in HR systems or elsewhere
The different processes that have to be followed in each host country and the language demands that come with this.
An understanding of local filing exemptions, particularly for ‘postings’ with different purposes (and indeed the lack of visibility about why a business traveller is actually going on a trip)
The speed with which that data has to be assembled and submitted, particularly for businesses that are used to deploying people quickly.

How to comply with the Posted Workers Directive

How are businesses dealing with the Directives? The pan-European nature of the legislative framework and the application of the rules to even short term cross border workers means that the PWDs – either the Enforcement Directive requirements or the Equal pay for Equal Work Directive provisions – apply to a huge number

What is the future direction of the Posted Workers Directive?

The main PWD Directives came into force in 2016 and 2020 respectively. Both Directives now fall under the remit of the European Labour Authority (ELA), which was established in July 2019 and created to help Member States and the European Commission to ensure that EU rules on labour mobility and

Understanding employer obligations in the Posted Workers Directive

What do employers have to do under the new law? In practical terms, the key task relating to the Posted Workers Directives, which was brought in under the 2014 Enforcement Directive, is the ‘Obligation to make a simple declaration to the responsible national authorities, at the latest at the commencement

Who falls under the Posted Workers Directive?

The Posted Worker Directives define “posted worker” as: “A person who, for a limited time, carries out his or her work in the territory of an EU member State other than the state in which he or she normally works.” This seemingly simple definition has created one of the key

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How to comply with the Posted Workers Directive

What is the future direction of the Posted Workers Directive?

Understanding employer obligations in the Posted Workers Directive

Who falls under the Posted Workers Directive?