Background
Earlier this year, the European Commission published a discussion paper which asked for stakeholders’ views on whether labour law at EU and national level could be adapted to improve labour market flexibility, while maintaining and improving security for workers.
Although a non-legislative initiative, this Green Paper – Modernising Labour Law to Meet the Challenges of the 21st Century - has been controversial because it led to some groups, such as the trade unions, arguing that the EU should bring forward more and, invariably, stronger employment legislation. However, employers' organisations (including EEF) argued that there should be no more EU employment legislation.
The Communication
This Communication attempts to summarise the over 450 responses that the Commission received to this Green Paper from Member States, social partner organisations at EU and national level (including CEEMET and EEF), the European Parliament, national Parliaments, NGO’s, academics, legal experts, individual enterprises and private individuals. A copy of the responses by EEF and CEEMET, the European organisation to which EEF belongs, can be downloaded.
As might be expected, there was a diversity of views expressed which the Commission states makes “it difficult to establish points of consensus”. However, the Commission considers that the number of responses “confirms the pertinent and timeliness of a debate (on the modernisation labour law) that has been common to many Member States, but has yet to reach Community level”.
Whilst the Commission is not putting forward any legislative proposals in this Communication, it has identified a number of areas on which it feels there is “a demand for improved corporation, more clarity or just more and better information analysis”. These are:-
· The prevention and combating of undeclared work, especially in cross-border situations.
· The promotion, development and implementation of training and life-long learning to ensure greater employment security over the life cycle.
· The interaction between labour law and social protection rules in support of effective employment transitions and sustainable social protection systems.
· The clarification of the nature of the employment relationship to promote greater understanding and facilitate co-operation across the EU
· The clarification of the rights and obligations of the parties involved in sub-contracting chains, to avoid depriving workers of their ability to make effective use of their rights.
On two specific issues on which views were sought in the Green Paper (the draft Temporary Agency Workers Directive and the review of the Working Time Directive), the responses that the Commission received were, again as expected, very divergent:-
Draft Temporary Agency Workers Directive
The Member States and the social partners reiterated their positions on the merits of the proposed Directive with some Member States and trade unions, “calling for its adoption as a priority for labour law reform”. However, employers’ organisations considered that “the status of temporary workers to be sufficiently well-defined in national law”.
Review of Working Time Directive
The European Parliament called for working time arrangements “to be sufficiently flexible to meet the needs of employers and employees and to enable people to better balance work and family life, so as to safeguard competitiveness and improve the employment situation”. A number of Member States identified the revision of this Directive as “a key priority at EU level” and the ETUC wanted “an unambiguous recognition of inactive on-call time as working time, without any opt-outs”. However, BusinessEurope considered that “EU recognition in this area to have been misconceived in its original form” with employers urging the adoption of proposals to revise the Directive to solve the problems created for healthcare and the private sector by the ECJ judgement in the SIMAP/Jaeger case but wanting to see the opt-out provision retained “as a way of ensuring greater labour market flexibility”.
Next steps
Although the Commission has said that the Green Paper will not lead to more legislation, EEF will continue to monitor this debate. Meanwhile, the Commission's recently published Work Programme for 2008 indicates that it is planning to bring forward new legislation to revise both the European Works Councils Directive and the Maternity Leave Directive. EEF will be lobbying the European institutions to limit the impact of these proposals on our members.