Read this article in:
12 January, 2009
A comprehensive study entitled “Temporary Agency Work and Collective Bargaining in the EU” expertly lays out the many differences in the 27-member union on laws and regulations, the broad shapes temporary work takes from country to country, and collects vital collective bargaining data on an issue that is the world’s biggest threat to decent work.
The study was compiled by surveying 28 national labour centres last March. It was done by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound). The research was done by Eurofound’s European Industrial Relations Observatory (EIRO).
The 48-page study can be found in pdf here.
The study charts agency work growth, country by country, from 2004 to 2007, both in numbers of workers and in revenue growth and it also graphs male, female ratios, and percentages in young and old workers.
Regarding laws relating to agency work, the study includes Norway’s 1977 Work Environment Law as the earliest statute on the books in greater Europe. The late 1980s witnessed Belgium, Austria, and Portugal adopting statutes. Eurofound’s study finds that today, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Malta are without clear legal frameworks.
In Bulgaria, trade unions and businesses have sought a legal remedy for the triangular employment relationship, but disagreements on content in any proposed law has prevented passage both in 2006 and 2008. In Estonia and Lithuania, legislation is non-existent but there are licensing systems for agency labour firms. The study also points out that in Denmark, uniquely, strict regulation occurs inside the social dialogue process. The Danish model is considered by many to be the most evolved.
In late October 2008, the European Parliament passed the Directive on Temporary Agency Work, premised on the principle of equal treatment for temporary workers. “Temporary Agency Work and Collective Bargaining in the EU’s” value, clearly, can be found in the fact that this Directive allows countries to have exemptions or derogations, specifically with collective bargaining and social dialogue between partners.
The study cites 10 countries that have umbrella employer associations which bargain collectively with trade unions on behalf of temp agency firms. All 10 are original EU member states. The study also says that, nearly without exception, there is not any role defined for collective bargaining in regulating temp work in the new member states.
The survey of labour organisations cites 10 countries with having estimates of trade union density for agency workers. It ranges from Denmark (50%) and Finland (44%), to Slovenia (0.18%), France (0.9%), Italy (1.4-1.7%), to Austria and Luxembourg (5% each), and the Netherlands (17%). In Sweden, a difference is noted between white-collar (17%) and blue-collar (50%), the latter figure, the study says, “might reflect higher exposure to trade unions in the user companies.”
The study notes that the CGT in France was the earliest to sign a collective agreement with a temp firm – Manpower in 1968 – and that all three Italian trade union organisations (CGIL, CISL, UIL) established, in the late 1990s, internal units to represent temporary workers. It says the trend now in most countries is for agency workers to join the trade union closest to their sector or job.
The study contains scores of useful pieces of information, best characterising the broad effects the issue paints across all worklife in EU countries. In Austria and Germany, for instance, agency work is found more often in the blue-collar jobs of metalworking and manufacturing. In Finland, some two-thirds of agency workers are employed by firms for less than a year, with an average assignment of 94 days. In Denmark, 13% of the government’s “work and stay” permissions since 2004 have been granted to east Europeans hired through labour agencies. Temporary workers in France have the shortest average work lengths, 1.9 weeks, while in the UK, one in five agency workers have been on a single job for an average of 18 months.
Eurofound’s 2008 study compilation, done by its EIRO research arm, is a valuable document in terms of developing a substantive view on the effects and proliferation of agency labour in Europe.