The draft Temporary Agency Workers Directive proposes that temporary agency workers should be treated no less favourably, in terms of pay and some conditions of employment, than comparable permanent employees in the workplace to which they are assigned.
The key campaign issue for EEF is when this principle of equal treatment should begin. The Commission’s proposal suggested a qualifying period of six weeks after which a temporary worker would then have to be treated the same as an equivalent permanent employee.
Some Member States, and the European Parliament in its First Reading, have argued that equal treatment should apply from the first day of a temporary contract. The UK Government wants to increase the qualifying period to six months.
Many agency workers are highly-skilled, well-paid and often choose to work on temporary contracts for lifestyle reasons; they are therefore not all “vulnerable” workers. For many of our members, the use of agency work is crucial to allow them to respond quickly and efficiently to fluctuations in demand for their products.
At present, employers enter into a commercial relationship with an agency about using agency workers; however, if they are immediately forced to give agency workers the same pay and conditions as comparable permanent employees, it will increase their costs, reduce their ability to respond to changes in demand and damage their competitiveness.
In this scenario, employers will be reluctant to use agency workers. This will probably result in some work taking longer to complete, more use being made of overtime or companies using more self-employed workers. As a result, we believe that the principle of equal treatment should only apply for longer term assignments.
The UK has led a small group of Member States that want a longer qualifying period and, for some time, have used their combined voting weights to block progress on this Directive in the Council of Ministers.
However, there are now concerns that support for the UK’s position is weakening and, at the EU Employment Council on 5 December 2007, the Portuguese Presidency proposed a compromise “deal” involving agreement on this Directive and the review of the Working Time Directive. Following extensive lobbying by EEF and other business organisations, this proposal was not put to the vote but it is likely to be put back on the table for discussion under either the Slovenian or French Presidencies during 2008.
EEF is concerned that this compromise “deal” could see the UK forced to make concessions on one proposal in return for gains on the other. For example, the UK could be asked to drop its call for a longer agency worker qualifying period in return for maintaining the individual opt out.
We also believe that it is wrong to link what are two separate issues, a view that we have persuaded our sister organisations in other Member States to support, and we are urging the government not to make concessions which would damage the flexibility of the UK’s labour market.