European Parliament Passes Agency Workers Directive
An update on the latest news regarding the Agency Workers Directive.
Latest News – The European Parliament today passed the Agency Workers Directive.
The directive would ensure that UK firms pay temporary and agency workers the same as permanent staff after 12 weeks in a job. There’s no need for panic, it’s early days yet and the detail will need to be thrashed out by MPs before it’s passed as UK law. The aim of the European Agency Workers Directive is to create parity between the working conditions and benefits of temporary and permanent workers.
The employer’s organisation that has agreed this deal is the CBI which has commented: “There has been a major risk of damaging legislation coming from Brussels, and the CBI has judged that the government’s proposals represent the least worst outcome possible for British business. Half of agency assignments will be unaffected as they last less than twelve weeks – protecting businesses’ ability to deal with peaks and troughs in demand and shorter-term staff absences. And while pay is covered, occupational benefits that recognise the long-term relationship permanent staff have with an employer, like sick pay and pensions, are rightly excluded”.
The CBI goes on to say “Critically, as well as enabling the European directive on agency work to be put to bed, this agreement should allow the retention of the working hours opt-out from the working time directive, which is equally vital to the future of the British economy.”