On Wednesday 29 August, MEPs on the European Parliament’s employment and social affairs committee (EMPL) held a long debate on defining the term ‘worker’ and, to a lesser extent, ‘employer’ in the framework of the directive on transparent and predictable working conditions in the European Union.
Reacting to the tension over defining the term ‘worker', rapporteur Enrique Calvet Chambon (ALDE, Spain) made a suggestion during his intervention. Rather than seeking a definition of the term ‘worker’ at European level, with the risk of creating legal insecurities with national laws and the definitions of the European Court of Justice, he suggested focusing on the characteristics of contractual relations.
He therefore proposed that anyone should be considered a worker who is in an economically dependent, functional organisational and hierarchical situation so that as many as possible are covered by the directive. The MEP said one should avoid excluding workers from the directive’s scope of application, thus avoiding "juridical dumping". The MEP wants to avoid getting bogged down in a legal-national debate that could ruin the negotiations.
This position was not shared by the shadow EPP rapporteur, Dennis Radtke (Germany), who said a legal approach was needed. In his view, it would be difficult to strike a compromise with the rapporteur and a vote would be needed on this particular point. The S&D’s rapporteur, Javi López (Spain), does not seem convinced by the proposal either. In his opinion, legal guarantees are needed to allow effective impregnation of the directive. He stressed the narrow gap between notions of ‘employer’ and ‘worker’ in emerging new types of job and called for the directive to cover them.
Anthea McIntyre (shadow rapporteur for the CRE, United Kingdom) expressed concern about the Council’s position of excluding some public service bodies (see EUROPE 12046). In terms of definitions, she expressed preference for replacing the term ‘worker’ with ‘employee,’ for which legal definitions already exist. All employees are workers, but not all workers are employees, she explained. In her view, this approach had the advantage of legal certainty and all that would be required to cover new types of job would be to expand the definition.
Paloma López Bermejo (GUE/NGL, Spain), who is also shadow rapporteur, expressed concern about the definition of ‘employer.’ Danuta Jazłowiecka (EPP, Poland) and Michaela Šojdrová (EPP, Czech Republic), say it is not desirable to have a definition at EU level because of the very wide variety of national models. Georges Bach (EPP, Luxembourg) does not see things this way and urged the committee to find a solution. At some point we will have to do our legislative work, he snapped.
The European Commission insisted on the importance of having a definition for the term ‘worker,’ pointing out that it was an umbrella structure and it would be a historic step to have a definition. The Commission representative added that the text had been adopted at the Council without too much difficulty. The Council has included great flexibility in the definition of the term ‘worker’ (see EUROPE 12046).
The committee vote is scheduled for 18 October, at the same time as the vote on the European Labour Authority (see separate article). (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)