Table Of ContentDIRECTORATE GENERAL FOR INTERNAL POLICIES
POLICY DEPARTMENT C: CITIZENS' RIGHTS AND
CONSTITUTIONAL AFFAIRS
PETITIONS
Temporary contracts, precarious
employment, employees’ fundamental
rights and EU employment law
STUDY
Abstract
This study, commissioned by the European Parliament’s Policy Department for
Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs at the request of the Committee on
Petitions, was prepared to assess the nature and extent of employment
precariousness in the framework of EU fundamental rights and employment law.
The analysis focuses on two broad areas, namely atypical forms of employment
and franchising. The report identifies a number of ‘protective gaps’ at various levels
of regulation and puts forward policy recommendations that are informed by the
need to adopt holistic and comprehensive action for addressing what emerges as
a constantly moving target.
PE 596.823 EN
ABOUT THE PUBLICATION
This research paper was requested by the European Parliament's Committee on Petitions and
was commissioned, overseen and published by the Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and
Constitutional Affairs.
Policy departments provide independent expertise, both in-house and externally, to support
European Parliament committees and other parliamentary bodies in shaping legislation and
exercising democratic scrutiny over EU external and internal policies.
To contact the Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs or to subscribe
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Temporary contracts, precarious employment, employees’ fundamental rights and EU employment law
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CONTENTS
CONTENTS 3
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 5
LIST OF BOXES 6
LIST OF FIGURES 6
LIST OF TABLES 8
TABLE OF CASES 9
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 13
1. INTRODUCTION 18
1.1. Defining precarious work 19
1.2. EU fundamental social rights: The constitutional foundation against
precarious employment 28
1.3. Protective gaps, precarious work and EU law 33
2. THE INDIVIDUAL DIMENSION OF PRECARIOUSNESS: THE CASE OF
ATYPICAL WORK 41
2.1. Developments in atypical work 41
2.1.1. Part-time work 41
2.1.2. Fixed-time work 45
2.1.3. The relationship between atypical work and health and safety 47
2.1.4. The case of Zero-Hours Contracts (ZHCs) in the UK 49
2.1.5. The case of flexi-job contracts (FJCs) in Belgium 58
2.1.6. Concluding remarks 62
2.2. The relationship between EU primary law and atypical work 62
2.2.1. Equality between atypical and standard workers as a general principle of EU
law 63
2.2.2. EU primary law and inclusive labour standards 64
2.2.3. Concluding remarks 66
2.3. EU secondary law 67
2.3.1. Atypical Work Directives 67
2.3.2. Interaction with EU anti-discrimination legislation 77
2.3.3 Concluding remarks 80
3. THE COLLECTIVE DIMENSION OF PRECARIOUSNESS: THE CASE OF
FRANCHISING 81
3.1. Franchising: The paradoxical business architecture 81
3.2. Franchising and (representational) precariousness: The labour
architecture 83
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3.3. Franchising and EU law: Identifying the gaps 86
3.3.1. Primary EU Law 87
3.3.2. Secondary EU Law 88
3.3.3. Collective Bargaining and Industrial Action 96
3.4 Concluding remarks 97
4. THE INTERPLAY BETWEEN DIFFERENT POLICY MEASURES 98
4.1. Introduction 99
4.2. The working time dimension of precariousness: Atypical workers and the
Working Time Directive 100
4.2.1. Personal scope of application 100
4.2.2. The substantive content of the Working Time Directive 101
4.3. The informational dimension of precariousness: Atypical work and the
Written Statement Directive 104
4.3.1. Scope of application 105
4.3.2. Substantive content of the Written Statement Directive 105
4.4. Franchising, atypical work and representational precariousness: The case
of the fast-good sector 107
5. CONCLUSION AND POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS 111
5.1. Introduction 112
5.2. Inclusive labour standards 115
5.3. Equal treatment and the relevance of working time regulation 118
5.4. Effective labour standards 120
5.5. Conclusion 122
REFERENCES 123
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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
ABVV/FGTB General Federation of Belgian Labour
ACLVB/CGSLB General Confederation of Liberal Trade Unions of Belgium
AG Advocate General
CFREU Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union
CJEU Court of Justice of the European Union
CSC-ACV Confederation of Christian Trade Unions
CRD Collective Redundancies’ Directive
EC European Commission
EP European Parliament
EU European Union
EWC European Works’ Council
EWCD European Works’ Council Directive
FCJ Flexi-Job Contract
FTC Fixed-Term Contract
HORECA Hotel/Restaurant/Café
ICD Information and Consultation Directive
NGHC No Guaranteed Hours Contract
ONS Office for National Statistics
SER Standard Employment Relationship
TEU Treaty on European Union
TFEU Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union
TUD Transfer of Undertakings’ Directive
UK United Kingdom
ZHCs Zero-Hours Contracts
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LIST OF BOXES
BOX 1
Re-employment, job quality, health and allostatic load biomarkers 48
BOX 2
The Wippel case 73
BOX 3
Abercrombie and Fitch Italia Srl v Bordonaro 79
BOX 4
Franchising as an Economic Activity within the EU 83
BOX 5
Defining the notion of the ‘controlling undertaking’ 90
BOX 6
Definition of collective redundancies 94
BOX 7
Main entitlements and limits under the Working Time Directive 101
Box 8
Franchising and Social Dialogue in France 117
LIST OF FIGURES
FIGURE 1
The relationship between organisational and employment fragmentation 27
FIGURE 2
Persons employed part-time in EU Member States – Percentage of total
employment (2016) 42
FIGURE 3
Employment rate of the population aged 20-64 and percentage of part-time
workers by gender in 2015 42
FIGURE 4
Underemployed part-time workers, persons aged 15-74, all countries and EU-28,
annual average, 2016 (% of part-time workers) 43
FIGURE 5
Involuntary part-time employment, by age group, EU-28, 2008 and 2016 44
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Temporary contracts, precarious employment, employees’ fundamental rights and EU employment law
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FIGURE 6
Temporary employment in Italy as a percentage of the total employment, per age
groups (2005-2017) 45
FIGURE 7
Involuntary temporary employees, by age group, EU-28, 2008 and 2015 46
FIGURE 8
Temporary employment in Italy as percentage of the total employment: men and
women (2007-2016) 47
FIGURE 9
Number (thousands) of people in employment reporting they are on a zero hours
contract (2000 to 2017) 53
FIGURE 10
Number (thousands) of people on ZHCs by length of time with current employer
(2016 and 2017) 53
FIGURE 11
Percentage of businesses making some use of contracts that do not contain a
minimum number of hours by size of business (May 2017) 54
FIGURE 12
Percentage of all employees on contracts that do not guarantee a minimum
number of hours by industry (2017) 55
FIGURE 13
Comparison of percentages (%) of people who are in employment on a “zero-hours
contract” and who are not on a “zero-hours contract” by sex, April to June 2017 55
FIGURE 14
Comparison of percentages (%) of people who are in employment on a “zero-
hours contract” and who are not on a “zero-hours contract” by age, April to June
2017 56
FIGURE 15
Comparison of percentages (%) of people who are in employment on a “zero-hours
contract” and who are not on a “zero-hours contract” on full-time and part-time
basis, April to June 2017 56
FIGURE 16
Percentage of people on a ZHC by industry, ranked highest to lowest (2017) 57
FIGURE 17
Percentage of people in each industry in employment on a ZHC, ranked highest to
lowest (2017) 57
FIGURE 18
Interplay between franchising, atypical employment and voice 107
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LIST OF TABLES
TABLE 1
References to precariousness in CJEU case law in the area of social policy 23
TABLE 2
Identifying precarious work indicators/determinants – main examples 34
TABLE 3
Protective gaps shaping precarious employment 38
TABLE 4
Comparison of employment rights for employees, workers and the self-employed
52
TABLE 5
Prevalence of FJCs in the HORECA sector 60
TABLE 6
Breakdown of employers per number of flexi-job and occasional (“extra”) workers
60
TABLE 7
Evolution of employment posts in the HORECA sector (2015-2016) 61
TABLE 8
Trimestral remuneration per type of contract (worker) in the HORECA sector 61
TABLE 9
Trimestral remuneration per type of contract (employee) in the HORECA sector
61
TABLE 10
Distribution of FJCs and occasional work on the basis of age groups 61
TABLE 11
Distribution of FJCs and occasional work on the basis of organisational size 62
TABLE 12
The CFREU and the collective aspects of franchising 87
TABLE 13
Matrix of policy recommendations 114
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TABLE OF CASES
European Union
Case C-11/70 International Handelsgesellschaft v Einfuhr- und Vorratsstelle
Getreide (1970) ECR 1125
Case C-22/71 Béguelin Import v GL Import-Export [1971] ECR 949
Case C-4/73 J. Nold, Kohlen- und Baustoffgroßhandlung v Commission of the
European Communities. [1974] ECR 491
Case C-15/74 Centrafarm BV et Adriaan de Peijper v Sterling Drug Inc. [1974] ECR
1147
Case C-53/81 D.M. Levin v Staatssecretaris van Justitie [1982] ECR 1035
Case C-14/83 Sabine von Colson and Elisabeth Kamann v Land Nordrhein-
Westfalen [1984] ECR 1891
Case C-105/84 Foreningen af Arbejdsledere i Danmark v A/S Danmols Inventar, in
liquidation [1985] ECR 2639
Case C-161/84 Pronuptia de Paris GmbH v Pronuptia de Paris Ermgard Schillgalis
[1986] ECR I-353
Case C-66/85 Deborah Lawrie-Blum v Land Baden-Württemberg [1986] ECR 2121
Case C-109/88 Handels- og Kontorfunktionærernes Forbund I Danmark v Dansk
Arbejdsgiverforening, acting on behalf of Danfoss [1989] ECR 3199
Case C-41/90 Klaus Höfner and Fritz Elser v Macrotron GmbH. [1991] ECR I-1979
Case C-449/93 Rockfon A/S v Specialarbejderforbundet i Danmark [1995] ECR I-
4291
Case C-84/94 United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland v Council of
the European Union (Working Time Directive) [1996] ECR I-5755
Joined Cases C-253 to C-258/96 Helmut Kampelmann and Others v
Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe, Stadtwerke Witten GmbH v Andreas Schade
and Klaus Haseley v Stadtwerke Altena GmbH [1997] ECR I-6907
Case C-185/97 Belinda Jane Coote v Granada Hospitality Ltd. [1998] ECR I-5199
Case C-173/99 The Queen v Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, ex parte
Broadcasting, Entertainment, Cinematographic and Theatre Union (BECTU) [2001]
ECR I-4841
Case C-350/99 Wolfgang Lange v Georg Schünemann Gmbh [2001] ECR I-1061
Case C-62/99 Betriebsrat der bofrost Josef H. Boquoi Deutschland West GmbH &
Co. KG v Bofrost Josef H. Boquoi Deutschland West GmbH & Co. KG. [2001] ECR I-
02579
Case C-438/99 Maria Luisa Jiménez Melgar v Ayuntamiento de Los Barrios [2001]
ECR I-6915
Case C-440/00 Gesamtbetriebsrat der Kühne & Nagel AG & Co. KG v Kühne & Nagel
AG & Co. KG [2004] ECR I-787
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