No later than December 5th 2011, the staffing directive should be implemented in all EU Member States. Then the rules of national law that prevents the use of agency workers will be removed.
The Staffing directive is an EU directive that specifies what terms and conditions of employment shall apply to temporary agency workers.
According to the EU Commission, the directive will contribute to strengthening the temporary worker safety and meet customer business needs of flexible manpower supply.
The main rule of the directive is that temporary workers should have the same pay and conditions of employment as if he or she was employed in the client company, in accordance with the so-called principle of equality. In the basic conditions this include working hours, overtime, breaks, rest periods, night work, holidays and public holidays. The salary is excluded and is taken care of by the national law.
The directive also contains rules about that the staffing sector should not be treated differently in a negative way. Barriers to employment agencies and temporary workers will be inventoried and possibly removed.
In Sweden, the problem is that the trade union LO with its covenant wants to limit the establishment opportunities for agencies and their possibilities to work on the Swedish labor market, which is clearly contrary to EU law.
There is already a dispute and the judgment in the area, the so-called Laval case. This case dealt with the federation of labor unions Buildings and Electricians to prevent a Latvian company to operate in Sweden.
In December 2009, the industrial tribunal convicted against these unions and sentenced them to pay a total of 2.5 million SEK in damages to the Latvian construction company.
The Swedish Government's view is that the directive will be implemented in such a way that takes account of the Swedish labor market model, in which work and employment primarily is governed by collective agreements. This is allowed by the EU Directive, provided that the overall protection of the leased employees is respected and that the agreements do not violate the EU law.
It is Professor Birgitta Nyström from Lund University who may be asked to examine what must be done. The investigation should be done in consultation with social partners so that as little as possible of the existed solutions for temporary employees in Sweden are affected. The investigator will submit the report by 29 October 2010.
The Staffing directive will be implemented in Sweden by the next year (2011). This includes free establishment for staffing companies. At the same time it should be equal treatment, which means that people who are employed by the agency should fully enjoy the same labor situation as other employees
Cecilia Helland