Maximum transfer period useless

In a guest commentary for the Chamber of Industry and Commerce, Alexander Eisnecker, staff officer for labour market instruments at iGZ member company DEKRA Arbeit GmbH, discussed the 18-month maximum assignment period for the temporary employment sector called for in the coalition agreement. It states:

'Which changes are ultimately to be implemented in connection with the Temporary Employment Act is still largely unclear. The fact is that in the current legislative period, a statutory maximum leasing period of 18 months is to be set - as stated in the coalition agreement.

General conditions

The fundamental question here is who benefits from this: Due to the introduction of industry supplement tariffs - which were negotiated for each industry between the collective bargaining parties - temporary workers in practice receive largely the same remuneration as permanent employees; the framework conditions for this remuneration were negotiated with the industry trade unions.

Lower remuneration

However, as soon as it is ‘really worth it’ for the employee - whose pay increases successively with the duration of the assignment in accordance with most industry supplemental pay scales - i.e. as soon as he earns the same level as the permanent workforce as a well-trained employee, he is not permitted by law to continue his assignment at the hirer company and must start again from the beginning and with lower pay when a new customer assignment takes place.

Better earning opportunities

While the legal changes in the area of temporary work in the recent past have mostly created better earning opportunities for temporary workers, this limitation means a very clear and serious monetary disadvantage for temporary workers. The state also forgoes the higher inflow of money for the social security funds and the tax authorities.

Longer familiarisation period

This regulation is also of no benefit to the hiring companies, as the induction period is becoming longer and longer due to the increasing specialisation of activities. This will mainly harm unskilled or low-skilled workers or workers in structurally weak regions where there are few employment opportunities anyway.

Legal constructs

Numerous other changes have since been the subject of controversial discussion in expert reports commissioned by the state government of North Rhine-Westphalia from Brors and Schüren. The report goes far beyond the content of the coalition agreement and creates legal constructs on a very academic basis that are difficult to scrutinise and therefore difficult to implement. It can be said with certainty that they are in no way beneficial to temporary workers or the permanent workforce and are a great disadvantage for all commercial enterprises.

Discrimination

Two further points should be considered in the reorganisation of temporary employment law beyond the scope of the coalition agreement: If temporary workers are to be treated fairly like a company's permanent workforce, the state itself must finally say goodbye to discrimination: the legal ban on granting short-time working benefits to temporary workers! It would benefit everyone if temporary workers could remain in the company when short-time working is introduced and receive short-time working benefits in the same way as their permanent colleagues. This linking of the short-time working allowance to the company of assignment would certainly rule out the often-discussed, theoretically possible abuse of short-time working during ‘unhired periods’ in the temporary employment agency.

Short-time working allowance

The situation in companies has long been such that there is no longer any ‘surplus’ staff that can be ‘reduced’ during a period of short-time working - in order to produce, all jobs in a production plant must be filled - including those occupied by temporary workers. Even the harshest critics of temporary work, including IG Metall, have called for the extension of the short-time working allowance scheme and an end to state discrimination against temporary workers in this way.

‘Temporary’ labour

Finally, in connection with the further development of legal bases, it should always be considered whether old terminology can still be adopted. Throughout the European Union, the foreign-language equivalents of ‘temporary’ labour (English: Temp Work, French: Travail Temporaire, Spanish: Trabaja Tempral, Italian: Lavaro Interinale, Irish Gaelic: Obair Pháirtaimseartha) are always used in connection with ‘temporary employment’; only the German Temporary Employment Act] uses the term ‘temporary labour’.

Loan free of charge

However, this is nonsensical, especially in legal terminology, as Section 598 of the German Civil Code stipulates that a ‘loan’ must always be free of charge. However, since temporary employment agencies have to pay their employees wages and also social security contributions and taxes, free hiring out of employees - which is exactly what ‘temporary’ labour would be - only takes place in Germany in the Temporary Employment Act, but not in reality. It is therefore time to cut off this linguistic ‘braid’ from the 1970s, to adapt to European conditions and to equalise the legal language in a meaningful way.

Source: www.ig-zeitarbeit.de