Kountouris, Nicola --- "EU law and the regulation of ‘atypical’ work" [2016] ELECD 1420; in Bogg, Alan; Costello, Cathryn; Davies, C.L. A. (eds), "Research Handbook on EU Labour Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2016) 246

Book Title: Research Handbook on EU Labour Law

Editor(s): Bogg, Alan; Costello, Cathryn; Davies, C.L. A.

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781783471119

Section: Chapter 11

Section Title: EU law and the regulation of ‘atypical’ work

Author(s): Kountouris, Nicola

Number of pages: 21

Abstract/Description:

The EU has sought to regulate non-standard forms of work at least since the mid-1970s, when the Council first expressed its political will to adopt measures to ‘protect workers hired through temporary employment agencies and to regulate the activities of such firms with a view to eliminating abuses therein’. The 1989 Community Charter of the Fundamental Rights of Workers developed these protective aspirations further by reference to the objective of setting rules for the regulation of ‘forms of employment other than open-ended contracts, such as fixed-term contracts, part-time working, temporary work and seasonal work’. These objectives led to a fairly lengthy and laborious standard-setting process, culminating with the adoption of the three main Directives on atypical work, Directive 97/81 regulating part-time work, Directive 99/70 on fixed-term work, and Directive 2008/104 on temporary agency work, all of which, in their Preambles, explicitly refer to Point 7 of the 1989 Community Charter. As noted by Bell, ‘While each contains some specific rights, the thread linking [the three Directives] together is the recourse to equal treatment as a means to improve the quality of these forms of employment’. Unrelated to these instruments or their equal treatment rationale, we could add the worker protective contribution made by the Directive on the health and safety of fixed-term and temporary workers, and of the Directive on the information of the conditions applicable to the contract or employment relationship, all of which have some bearing on the regulation and protection of non-standard work.