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Transparent and predictable working conditions

The EU aims to ensure that workers know their working conditions right from the start of the employment relationship and that minimum conditions are met, in particular for those in precarious jobs.

The European pillar of social rights (ESPR) envisages a social Europe for all European citizens, in particular in the context of the changing realities of the world of work. New ways of working can bring many advantages to both workers and the economy. 

The new proposal seeks to ensure a basic level of universal protection across existing and future forms of employment relationships. It should set the legal framework for ensuring that also in new forms of employment workers are not without protection and enjoy some minimum rights. The overall goal of this proposal is that

  • all workers, including those in short-term and casual employment relationships, shall benefit from clarity about their working conditions and new minimum standards
  • employers benefit from more sustainable competition with greater legal certainty and from a more motivated and productive workforce, with increased contractual stability and retention
  • society at large benefits from an overall improvement in transparency on the labour markets


In figures:

  • since 2014, 20% of the 5 million new jobs created are in new forms of employment
  • in 2016 one quarter of all employment contracts were for non-standard forms of employment
  • there are approximately 2-3 million non standard workers in the EU

Why do we need it?

The current directive does not cover all workers in the EU, leading to poor protection of certain workers. Many workers do not receive a written confirmation of their working conditions or do not know sufficiently in advance, when they shall work. At least 2-3 million non-standard workers could benefit from this revised directive, providing them with a better understanding of their working conditions and their rights at work.

Employers would benefit thanks to more sustainable competition from increased legal certainty and an overall improvement in transparency on the labour markets.

The work landscape has changed due to the:

  • growing flexibility of the labour market
  • demographic changes in the working population
  • digitalisation

While new forms of employment have been a major driver of job creation and labour market growth these trends have also led to instability and an increased lack of predictability. Work unpredictability and insecurity leads to unstable and low income as well as lack of protection, poor health and a poor work-life balance.

It also leads to the fragmentation in the labour market across the EU, lower level of transparency and barriers to the free movement of labour in the EU.

To modernise the existing legal framework, the Commission has proposed a revision of the current written statement directive. The new directive on transparent and predictable working conditions will replace this directive from 1991.

Key term

Non-standard forms of employment: an umbrella term for different employment arrangements that deviate from standard employment. They include temporary employment, part-time and on-call work, temporary agency work and other multiparty employment relationships.

In detail

The general objective of the proposal is to improve and harmonise working conditions. Specific objectives relate to protecting workers' rights and creating greater transparency on the labour market.

The proposal of the Commission has a broad scope, to ensure that beneficiaries of these rights are workers in all forms of work, including those in the most flexible non-standard forms of employment and new forms of work such as:

  • domestic or voucher-based work
  • zero-hour contracts - the employer is not obliged to provide any minimum working hours
  • on call/on demand work - no predictable fixed hours
  • multiparty employment - workers are not directly employed by the company to which they provide their services
  • platform work - platform-mediated work that is carried out or, at least, delivered online

The proposal of the directive includes revised obligations to inform workers in written form of the essential aspects of their work, such as:

  • the place of work
  • type of work
  • working time
  • remuneration

Other guarantees are a maximum duration of the probationary period, the possibility to take up parallel employment and the obligation of the employer to inform workers with very variable work schedules sufficiently in advance about their working times.

 

Legal definition

'to improve and harmonise living and working conditions'
Article 151 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union

In the Council

The Commission presented its proposal on 21 December 2017, as a follow-up to the proclamation of the European Pillar of Social Rights in November 2017. On 21 June 2018, the Council agreed its negotiating position - general approach.

The Council's position includes the possibility for member states to exclude from the protection of the directive:

  • workers who do not work more than five hours per week on average in a reference period of four weeks
  • certain workers of the public service, based on objective grounds given the specific nature of the duties they are called to perform 

Some other elements of the Council's position include:

  • a time-frame to provide the information - suggest to provide a first deadline of one calendar week for the most essential information, and a second deadline of one month for the rest of the information
  • the definition of unpredictability of the work, which gives rise to the right to be informed to reasonable advance notice of work assignments by referring to 'mostly or entirely unpredictable work pattern' instead of a worker's work schedule being 'entirely or mostly variable'

Other points on which the Council diverged from the Commission proposal were:

  • definition of a worker - the Council did not agree on including a definition of 'worker' at EU level
  • seafarers and sea fishermen were excluded from the application of some parts of the directive as the Council considered these not to be adapted to the specific nature of the sector regulated by sectorial legislation

Following several trilogues, the Romanian presidency of the Council and the European Parliament reached a provisional agreement on 7 February 2019. 

On 15 February, the EU members states' representatives in the Council of the EU endorsed the provisional agreement on the directive.

The future directive will require employers to inform workers of the essential aspects of the employment relationship. According to the agreement, all workers working more than 3 hours per week over 4 weeks are to be covered by the directive. Certain groups of workers may be excluded from some of the provisions of the directive.

On 13 June 2019 the Council adopted the directive. It will enter into force on the twentieth day following its publication in the Official Journal of the EU. Member states will then have three years to take the necessary legislative measures to comply with the directive.

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