EU report highlights insecurity, health and safety risks in agency work

A new study reveals temporary agency work has the worst record on a number of indicators on working conditions

Agency work opens up the possibility of legally circumventing standards of pay and working conditions as determined by collective agreements and appears to be even more insecure than limited duration contracts, says a new EU report.

Temporary Agency Work in the European Union was published recently by the Dublin-based European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions. The foundation is an autonomous body of the EU, created to assist in the formulation of policy on social and work-related matters.

"A crucial difference between an agency worker and one employed with a limited duration contract is that the latter is employed by the user firm whereas the former is not," notes the report.

The agency worker and user firm relationship is governed by a commercial contract between the firm and the agency rather than an employment contract.

"This opens up the possibility of legally circumventing standards of pay and working conditions as determined by collective agreements," says the report.

The commercial contract can occasionally lead to better pay and conditions for the agency worker than those resulting from a collective agreement. This can be so where there are labour shortages, such as in the health sector in Sweden. Employers there were not prepared to raise their entire wage structure to attract nurses but they attracted extra personnel by offering higher wages to agency workers.

"However, there is widespread evidence - to the detriment of agency workers - of the circumvention of employment standards as regards pay and working-time regulation, as well as some evidence of illegal abuse," says the report.

It estimates that there are between 1.8 and 2.1 million temporary agency workers in the European Union, corresponding to 1.2 per cent to 1.4 per cent of all those employed in the EU.

In all member-states apart from Greece, temporary agency work grew rapidly during the 1990s, doubling or even increasing fivefold in some countries.

However, following a phase of deregulatory legislation, the rate of growth in temporary work decreased, and actually declined somewhat in the Netherlands, Europe's most temproary agency work-intensive country.

Agency work is highly concentrated among the young, with the under-25s making up 20 per cent to 50 per cent of all agency workers in the EU. More men than women are agency workers, with male dominance most pronounced in Germany and Austria. However, women are over-represented among those working with limited duration contracts.

Agency work appears to be even more insecure than limited duration contracts, says the report. "This was shown to be the case with regard to both contract duration and the volatility over the business cycle. It can thus be expected that any negative consequences associated with precarious employment will apply to agency work also."

Features of agency work likely to lead to poor working conditions include the frequent change of workplace and the duality of employer responsibility. "These characteristics of temporary agency work make any matter requiring dialogue between employer and employee potentially difficult to deal with. Nowhere do the difficulties of dual employer responsibility and rapid workplace turnover combine to such potentially problematic effect as in matters of health and safety in the workplace," says the report.

Directive 91/383/EEC aims to ensure equal treatment between agency workers and workers at the user firm. Its main thrust is to place primary responsibility with the user firm, but to require the agency to inform the worker of health and safety risks specific to each assignment.

The directive requires the worker to be given training to cope with hazards but it does not specify who is to provide it.

"What does the user firm know about an agency worker's previous training; and what does the agency know about the particular form of training required for a particular user firm? When one also considers the very short duration of a typical assignment, it is extremely unclear how these issues can be resolved, and some problems are likely as regards health and safety."

There is anecdotal evidence of poor working conditions in agency work, while descriptive statistics show that in some countries agency work is associated with appreciably poorer working conditions.

"Compared to all other forms of employment (meaning other types of contract, including limited duration contracts), temporary agency work has the worst record as regards a number of indicators on working conditions, including the provision of information to the worker on the risks associated with certain materials, products and instruments, and repetitive work."

Agency workers experienced a lack of autonomy over tasks and working times, did more shiftwork, had less time to do the job and reported less satisfaction with working conditions than other workers.