Brussels, 25 June 2025
Today, EFFAT hosted a high-level event in Brussels to present its Model Directive on Labour Intermediaries and Fair Working Conditions across Subcontracting Chains, a concrete proposal to end abusive labour practices that continue to undermine decent work across the EU and EFFAT sectors.
Abusive subcontracting and unregulated labour intermediation are central pillars of an exploitative business model increasingly prevalent in sectors such as agriculture, hospitality, and food processing. These practices are a major source of social dumping and unfair competition for responsible employers. They especially harm countless mobile and migrant workers, who are more vulnerable ad exposed to exploitation, labour crime, wage theft, dangerous working conditions, and precarious accommodation.
‘Today we are sending a very powerful message to the EU Institutions’ – said Enrico Somaglia EFFAT General Secretary’ – ‘It is time to eradicate the root causes of exploitation in our sectors. It is time to limit subcontracting and tackle gangmaster practices. If it is the same job in the same workplace, it must come with the same rights, conditions, and protections. It is time to restore fair labour and equal treatment’.
EFFAT’s proposal responds to the longstanding failure to regulate labour intermediaries and curb exploitative subcontracting.
It calls for:
- Limiting subcontracting and ensuring that equal pay for equal work applies in every workplace and throughout the subcontracting chain.
- Addressing gangmaster practices and regulating labour intermediaries through the creation of a community license and national registers.
- Increasing the frequency and bolstering the effectiveness of labour inspections, setting a minimum threshold for inspections, and requiring Member States to use cross-checking of data between enforcement authorities to identify potential labour abuses.
‘Too many workers are trapped in a system where nobody is accountable and everybody profits, except the workers’ said Wiebke Warneck, EFFAT Food Sector Secretary. ‘This is not accidental. It is the result of a political agenda that risks normalising exploitation. Our Model Directive proves that another path is possible: one where workers’ rights are enforced and labour abuse is no longer a competitive advantage.’
EFFAT calls on the European Commission to include this binding initiative in the Quality Jobs Roadmap, due by the end of 2025, and to launch legislative action without delay.
The event gathered trade union leaders, high level EU officials, workers, and civil society to discuss the Model Directive and chart a joint path to end labour abuse in subcontracting and labour intermediation.
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EFFAT Model Directive on Labour Intermediaries and Fair Working Conditions across Subcontracting Chains.
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