The Official Journal of the European Union, OJEO, published on December, 5th, 2008, the Directive 2008/104/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of November, 19th, on temporary agency work, which ensures the protection of temporary agency workers and recognises temporarywork agencies as employers.

Temporary agency work meets not only undertakings' needs for flexibility but also the need of employees to reconcile their working and private lives. It thus contributes to job creation and to participation and integration in the labour market.

Early June this year, Member States reached a political agreement on the Working Time Directive and the Temporary Agency Work Directive within the Employment and Social Affairs Council held in Luxembourg.

This Directive respects the fundamental rights and complies with the principles recognised by the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, and establishes a protective framework for temporary agency workers which is non-discriminatory, transparent and proportionate, while respecting the diversity of labour markets and industrial relations.

The purpose of this Directive is to ensure the protection of temporary agency workers and to improve the quality of temporary agency work by ensuring that the principle of equal treatment is applied to temporary agency workers, and by recognising temporarywork agencies as employers, while taking into account the need to establish a suitable framework for the use of temporary agency work with a view to contributing effectively to the creation of jobs and to the development of flexible forms of working.

Scope of the temporary agency work Directive

The Directive applies to:

1. Workers with a contract of employment or employment relationship with a temporarywork agency who are assigned to user undertakings to work temporarily under their supervision and direction.
2. Public and private undertakings which are temporary-work agencies or user undertakings engaged in economic activities whether or not they are operating for gain.

Member States will not exclude from the scope of this Directive workers, contracts of employment or employment relationships solely because they relate to part-time workers, fixed-term contract workers or persons with a contract of employment or employment relationship with a temporarywork agency.

However, Member States may, after consulting the social partners, provide that this Directive does not apply to employment contracts or relationships concluded under a specific public or publicly supported vocational training, integration or retraining programme.

Employment and Working Conditions for temporaryworkers

Directive 2008/104/CE, establishes that the basic working and employment conditions of temporary agency workers will be, for the duration of their assignment at a user undertaking, at least those that would apply if they had been recruited directly by that undertaking to occupy the same job.

Temporary agency workers will also be informed of any vacant posts in the user undertaking to give them the same opportunity as other workers in that undertaking to find permanent employment.

Temporary-work agencies will not charge workers any fees in exchange for arranging for them to be recruited by a user undertaking, or for concluding a contract of employment or an employment relationship with a user undertaking after carrying out an assignment in that undertaking.

Member States will lay down rules on penalties applicable in the event of infringements of national provisions implementing this Directive and will take all necessary measures to ensure that they are applied. The penalties provided for must be effective, proportionate and dissuasive. Member States shall notify these provisions to the Commission by December, 5th, 2011.