Race to the Bottom

Trade Unionists and other assorted statists often complain that Competition, Globalisation, Bolkestein (Insert Other Capitalist Ideas as Required) lead to a race to the bottom. This is something beyond contempt, to be avoided at all costs. For this reason, the services directive had to be defeated. As John Monks general secretary of the ETUC puts it:

The message was clear - the free market for services was to be conducted according to the laws of the least regulated country. That member-state would become the benchmark - and would no doubt attract registrations from companies based elsewhere, triggering a race to the bottom.

Which would not exactly do wonders to the Trade Union movement. They have different idea entirely:

The ETUC favours developing the single market in services. But we want to see protection for public services and for labour laws. The EU also needs to set some common standards on services across Europe.

Trade Unionists want to remove any chance of competition for their workers. The fact that it would destroy jobs in the new member states is irrelevant. Unions don’t care about unemployment, they just look at the impact of laws on Trade Union membership. Common standards across Europe mean a real race to the bottom. The bottom of the world’s economic growth league.