EU law allows Sicilians to be underpaid

The applicable ECJ rulings on the labour dispute causing the Immingham strikes are Viking and Laval but emphasised in Ruffert, linked here: Again in the Rüffert case, the ECJ has ruled that Article 49 EC precludes an authority of a Member State from adopting a measure of a legislative nature requiring the contracting authority to designate as contractors for public works contracts only those undertakings which, when submitting their tenders, agree in writing to pay their employees at least the remuneration prescribed by the collective agreement in force at the place where the services are performed. The combined effect of the rulings in Viking, Laval and Rüffert is to impose stringent limitations on any matters, including industrial action, which could limit the rights under Articles 43 and 49 EC. So it cannot be clearer than that, those Italian and Portuguese workers on their prison hulk in Grimsby docks could in fact be getting starvation pay or possibly even be criminals serving some penalty for a misdemeanour in their own countries! Frank Field MP., alone it seems in the Labour Party, has understood the gravity of the situation, although the mentally disturbed Prime Minister Brown seems to be back-stepping from his "indefensible" statement aired on the Politics Show at lunchtime, according to this report in The Times.