.gif){kind=small}
BACK TO HOME
PAGE BACK TO HOME
PAGE EUROPEAN REVIEW
IN MARCH the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), the Union of Industrial & Employers Confederations of Europe (UNICE) and the public sector employers (CEEP) signed a framework agreement on fixed term working. It seeks to prevent discrimination against fixed term workers, laying down the principle that they should not be 'treated less favourably than comparable permanent workers solely because they have a fixed term contract' (FTC) and establishes a framework for stopping the abuse of these contracts. In principle it applies to all such employees apart from agency workers (these will be dealt with by a future agreement) but provides for Member States, after consultation with social partners in their country, to exclude those undergoing initial vocational training and apprenticeship schemes and 'specific public or publically-supported training, integration and vocational retraining programme[s]'. This would appear to leave room for workers on schemes such as the U.K. government's New Deal to be excluded.
The agreement states that Member States must introduce one or more of the following measures to control fixed term contracts: 1) obliging employers to give objective grounds as to why a contract must be renewed, 2) setting a maximum total duration for successive FTCs, 3) putting a cap on the number of renewals permitted. The Member States are responsible for which of these measures are adopted, and how they are implemented, in conjunction with the social partners in each country. Over the past two decades fixed term contracts have been becoming more prevalent across the EU. In 1997 11% of men and 13% of women were working in this way. About 56% of workers who had been unemployed a year earlier and had since found jobs were recruited on a fixed term basis. The importance of FTCs varies greatly from country to country. Tourism has long been a primary industry for them and so use is high in southern Europe (33.6% in Spain in 1997) but recently general business practice has moved to reduce the numbers of permanent staff, using FTCs to make up the difference. In the U.K., they are prominent in education and the public sector generally (see article on page 6).
T.U.C. General Secretary John Monks welcomed the agreement, saying, 'Once again Europe has acted to protect the rights of workers in the U.K. People employed on fixed term contracts need no longer feel like second class citizens in the workplace'. The EU Commission adopted the agreement with effect from 1st. May. Commissioner Pádraig Flynn, described the proposal as 'an important step in the European employment strategy. Minimum standards with regard to fixed-term work are a big step forward in creating a minimum set of fundamental rights for employees'. The agreement will now be sent to the Council of Ministers for legislative backing. Member States will then have a maximum of 3 years to incorporate it into national laws.
The Provisions
Clause 2 allows Member States to exclude apprenticeships, initial vocational training and publically supported schemes from the directive.
Clause 3 defines a fixed term worker as one whose contract finishes at a specific date or when a specific task has been completed.
Clause 4 states that fixed term workers shall not be treated less favourably than comparable permanent workers.
Clause 5 obliges Member States to establish objective reasons justifying renewal of contracts and/or total allowed duration of successive FTCs and/or the number of renewals allowed.
Clause 6 obliges employers to inform fixed term workers about permanent vacancies and suitable training.
Clause 7 says that FTC workers must be counted when a firm is deciding whether it qualifies for a European Works Council (currently >1,000).
Clause 8 encourages employers to inform workers' representatives about any fixed term working which they initiate.
THE LABOUR ministry in France has prepared a report which claims 40% of companies in the Greater Paris region operate working time policies which break the EU working time directive maximum of 48 hours per week. Labour minister Martine Aubry, as reported in the pages of our last issue,is trying to create jobs by legislating for cuts in working hours. The 'loi Aubry' which will come into effect on 1st. January 2000 will impose a statutory 35-hour week for all but the smallest firms. To allay employers' fears of higher labour costs when the law comes in, Prime Minister Lionel Jospin has reduced their social security contributions for workers who earn less than 180% of the minimum wage, if they adopt the 35-hour week before the deadline. Meanwhile, Syntec-Informatique, the employers' organisation in Information Technology has argued that their sector already suffers from skills shortages and so reductions in working hours would be counter-productive.
IN AUSTRIA, UNIONS and employers have agreed to commence negotiations for a first national collective agreement for temporary agency workers. The aim is to grant them a single status for pay and conditions of employment. The number of temps in the country has doubled in the last ten years.
LATEST FIGURES released by the industrial employers' federation Dansk Industri (DI) show that blue-collar manufacturing workers have typically settled for 1.5% to 1.75% pay rises in 1999. Inflation in Denmark is forecast at 2.7% for this year.
FOLLOWING OUR article in European Review issue 5, the Communication Workers' Union in Ireland has launched a major recruitment campaign targeted at workers in call centres. This is part of a Europe-wide effort by Union Network International. The CWU has already been recognised by UPS, Parceline and Interlink.
IN THE NETHERLANDS so- called 'cafeteria-style' options have been agreed by the social partners. These allow workers to pick the benefits they want from collective agreements. These can take the form, for example, of childcare, health cover or early retirement.
|
Back to |
Forward to |
Up to |
Back to |
