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March 4, 2008 - Richard Donkin
I am old enough to remember a time when the European Union described itself as the Common Market. There was little that was common about it then and still less today where an enlarged EU seems united as much by its differences as it is by common practices.
While different legal frameworks are an obvious source of attention in the rocky road to harmonisation, it is cultural attitudes, shaped by years, sometimes centuries of historical traditions and practices that are proving the most stubborn barriers to change.
Few European initiatives have demonstrated this gulf in approaches more than the Agency Workers Directive that first appeared in draft form six years ago and which this year may finally succeed in finding its way in to European law, possibly after France assumes presidency of the European Council of Ministers in July.
Opposition, led by the UK and Ireland and supported through various political understandings with other states, including Germany, Denmark and Poland, has been showing signs of crumbling recently.
In the UK, where much of the opposition has been concentrated within a mature temporary agency market, the government is under intense pressure from trade unions and a growing number of MPs to legislate on equal pay and conditions for temporary workers - the main provisions of the directive.
A Private Member's Bill that received the support of 147 MPs at its second reading could yet force the hand of the administration although Gordon Brown, the UK prime minister, has been lobbying the trade unions to sign up to a commission looking in to temporary workers' rights.
The Confederation of British Industry and the Recruitment and Employment Confederation in the UK have mounted a robust rearguard action, claiming that the industry - the UK is estimated to employ more than a third of all agency workers in the EU - does not need fixing.
Trade Union leaders such as Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison - a union with a large public sector membership - have claimed that companies have been using long-term temporary workers to save money they would otherwise have spent employing permanent members of staff.
Mr Prentis has claimed that unregulated agencies have been exploiting workers by charging illegal fees for health and safety equipment and for meals and uniforms. He rejects fears that legislation could put an end to the market, arguing that temporary nursing staff, who do enjoy equal pay and conditions in the UK, continue to be an important part of the National Health Service.
Few would argue that there are parts of the temporary employment sector - much of it outside the range of the agency industry - where employees are exploited. The problem is that temporary and contract work covers a broad range of employee engagement, from highly paid interim executives at one end to casual, unregistered, agricultural labour at the other.
Employee rights, at whatever level, however, still matter and the principal of equal pay and conditions for individuals doing the same work is one to which most of Europe's governments, whatever else their differences, can subscribe.
A commission in the UK might be of some help in that it could try to shed light on the real implications of equalising legislation. The CBI has estimated that the directive would lead to the loss of 250,000s jobs in the UK. Eurociett, the European Confederation of Private Employment Agencies, on the other hand, believes that industry liberalisation resulting from the directive would create some 2.1m jobs across the EU over five years.
Some in the temporary agency sector believe that the UK private member's bill - it is the second in two years - has been designed as political ploy to force the UK's hand on the Agency Workers Directive which is much clearer than the UK bill in the way it compares temporary and full time jobs.
Indeed the agency sector is largely welcoming of the directive's measures to liberalise temporary working across Europe since it will create business opportunities that do not exist at present while clarifying employment terms. The industry in most of Europe is bedevilled by various restrictions in different countries.
One sticking point has been the qualifying period for equal terms and conditions set at six weeks in the existing directive but which industry organisations such as the CBI have asked to be set at a year. A year's grace looks unlikely but there may be room for compromise on a slightly longer qualifying period.
What is looking less likely is that the continued blocking stance will be allowed to persist much longer. Most of Europe is ready for greater flexibility in the workplace and the Agency Workers Directive, for good or ill, is refusing to go away.
While the UK government continues to deliberate with the Trades Union Congress over the nature of any commission, the time for politicking appears to be running out.
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