TEMPS DIRECTIVE STILL MAKING WAVES.

Meeting the Lisbon targets involves change, and although most Member States are happy with the targets, not all of them are happy with the changes required. One good example of this is the proposed Directive on temporary workers, which has stirred up controversy at every step. Temporary workers give business tremendous flexibility, especially in sectors such as catering, manufacturing and construction where the workload is variable. Therefore expanding this type of employment is seen as advantageous to business. But in order to expand it, it has to be made more attractive to workers. The Directive seeks to do this, notably by guaranteeing temps the same pay and conditions that they would have received, had they been permanently employed. This is already the case in some Member States, like the Netherlands with the biggest temporary sector (4%). In other Member States like Denmark, there are agreements in place which give temps better pay than permanent workers. In the UK and Ireland however, temps (particularly in the catering and construction industries) generally suffer worse pay and conditions than...