Brussels, 20/02/2002 (Agence Europe) - In a letter addressed to President Romano Prodi, the Director General of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI, member of the employers' group, UNICE), Digby Jones, expressed concern about the adoption of a draft European directive on temporary work. The proposal of directive would grant temporary employees the same rights and the same salary as employees under contract. He therefore calls on the President to "amend the draft directive to give Member States a discretionary right to apply the clause on equal rights in a way that is compatible with existing national systems". Such adoption would be "detrimental for the British labour market, which is one of the most flexible in Europe with 1.7 million temporary employees generally under contract with placement agencies", explains Digby Jones. He goes on to add that "proposing the same rights and the same salaries to temporary agents as to long-term workers of an enterprise" would not be feasible in the United Kingdom and the employers would respond to this by employing fewer temps, to the detriment of everyone concerned". Mr Jones therefore proposes that employees of a temping agency benefit from equal rights and salaries within their placement agency and not within the enterprise where they are placed on a temporary basis.
Answering questions on this matter, Thérèse de Lidekerke, UNICE Director, declared "We agree about the need for temporary workers to be treated correctly, and we agree on the principle of non-discrimination at European level. But there is a difference with the other kinds of flexible work. In the case of the temping agency, there is a triangular relationship: the agency which employs the temp; the temp; and the company using the services of the temp. The temporary worker must be protected either by the principle of non-discrimination compared to the employee or by a system of comparison between workers of the same agency. That is a balanced solution at European level", said Mrs de Liedekerke. We recall that negotiations between European trade unions and employers failed last year over the definition of "comparable worker" (see EUROPE of 28 and 29 May 2001, p.16). After this failure, Ms Diamantopoulou undertook to propose legislation on this (see EUROPE of 2 June 2001, p.13).