CWS 3.0: March 26, 2014

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Europe’s Agency Work Directive ‘Imbalanced’

The president of the European Confederation of Private Employment Agencies (Eurociett) has called the European Commission’s (EC) application review report on the Agency Work Directive (AWD) disappointing.

The purpose of the AWD is to protect temporary agency workers and to improve the quality of temporary agency work by ensuring their equal treatment — and by recognizing staffing firms as employers, while taking into account the need to establish a suitable framework for the use of temporary agency work, with a view to contributing effectively to job creation and to the development of flexible forms of working.

The EC was required to consult with member states and social partners to review the application of the directive with in order to propose, where appropriate, necessary amendments.

According to the resulting report, all member states have adopted measures to implement the directive and have, in general, done so correctly. Eurociett acknowledges that the principle of equal treatment has been transposed. However, the organization feels that it lacks a clear commitment to limit restrictions on the use of temporary agency workers, in accordance with Article 4 of the directive.

 “Contrary to what the Commission’s review report says, Eurociett finds that the directive has not been transposed in a balanced way,” says Eurociett President Annemarie Muntz. “While equal treatment for agency workers is in place in all EU member states, unjustified restrictions on temporary agency work still exist.”

According to the directive, restrictions on the use of agency work by member states will be tolerated only in exceptional cases, and it provides that by the end of 2011 any prohibition on agency work will only be acceptable if it can be “justified on grounds of [the] general interest.”

She went on to note that Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Sweden restrict the use of agency work in legislation as well as collective labor agreements. “These restrictions are stifling temporary work agencies and preventing them from creating jobs and contributing to competitiveness and growth,” Muntz says.

“While the directive in Article 4 clearly reduces the scope for justifications to which member states may resort to restrict the use of temporary agency work, too many restrictions are still in place, including prohibitions on the sectors that can make use of agency work, setting limits to the number of agency workers in a company, or restricting the reasons to use agency work services,” she adds.