Catherwood LibraryILR School

Debate is heating up over a draft directive of the European Commission, recently leaked to the press, which would guarantee temporary agency workers the same rights as their full-time coworkers. The proposed reforms would not only expand employment rights protections to cover temp workers, they would require employers to pay temps the same wages and benefits---including pensions, holidays, health insurance, interest-free loans, bonuses, and profit-sharing---as permanent employees engaged in similar jobs. Employers and business groups in Britain, which, with over one million workers employed in the temporary sector, has the most agency workers of any EU member state, have been especially vocal in their criticism of the proposed reforms.