Council Members right to recognise inflexibility of agency work directive

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Wed 4th Jun 2003

Liz believes the Temporary Agency Workers Directive is too inflexible.

West Midlands Euro-MP Liz Lynne has supported the decision by the Denmark, Germany, Ireland and the UK Governments to block the proposed Temporary Agency Workers Directive in the EU Council yesterday.

This "blocking minority" of countries had proposed a compromise that temporary agency workers should only be given full worker's rights after 6 months of employment. In the end, no agreement was reached and the Council will revisit it later this year.

The Liberal Democrat member of the European Parliament's Employment and Social Affairs Committee commented:

"I have been a critic of this proposed directive from the outset, criticising its 'one size fits all' approach. There is no attempt in this directive to differentiate between the widely different practices of agency work across the EU, or even to differentiate between the widely different forms of agency work within individual countries."

"The directive as it stands is simply not in the best interests of the UK. It would threaten the jobs of thousands of people who actively prefer temporary work, introduce crippling bureaucracy for small agencies and damage flexibility in the workplace, while achieving very little in return. None of this is to begrudge temporary workers in the UK basic rights, just that the EU is not the best place to establish them. So while I would support UK Government drafting effective legislation on agency worker's rights, I simply cannot accept that it should be EU business, at least until a comprehensive impact assessment on the legislation's effects across Europe has been carried out.

"Finally, this issue also exposes the lie that the EU is a faceless bureaucracy that imposes its will on the UK. The system could be improved, and our own Government needs to be more open about its role, but fundamentally elected British politicians are fully involved in all decisions made in the EU which effect the UK."