Labour Research September 2002

Law Matters

Temporary workers' rights

As Labour Research went to press the government seemed determined to restrict new rights to "no less favourable treatment" to temporary workers employed under contracts of employment and whose status is one of "employees". The government is insisting that the European Fixed-Term Workers' directive allows this, even though the wording of this directive is identical to that in the directive on part-time workers. When the part-time workers' law was introduced in 2000 the government was forced to accept that the directive did cover workers more broadly and not just those classed as employees.