Temporary work can be a good stepping stone in a variety of situations. Provided the conditions are fair. The ECJ has ruled that temporary workers may only be paid less than regular employees if this unequal treatment is compensated for in the collective agreement.
A collective agreement that provides for a lower salary for temporary workers than for directly hired colleagues must give them other advantages in terms of working conditions. These advantages should be able to compensate for the unequal treatment of money, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) said in Luxembourg on Thursday. Otherwise the protection of temporary workers would be weakened. (Ref.: C-311/21)
The ECJ also emphasized that it must be possible to review such collective agreements in court. In doing so, he answered questions put to him by the Federal Labor Court. This has to decide on the complaint of a former retail agency worker. In 2017, the woman earned 4.40 euros less per hour than her colleagues who were employed directly by the hiring company. This was possible because the temporary employment agency paid according to a corresponding collective agreement.
On the other hand, the employee went to court. She demanded an additional payment of almost 1,300 euros because there was a violation of the principle of equal treatment of temporary workers with other workers. The Federal Labor Court stayed the proceedings to ask the ECJ to interpret EU law. Now that he has judged, the Federal Labor Court can decide on the woman's complaint. It is bound by the legal opinion of the ECJ.
After the ECJ ruling, the Federal Employers' Association of Personnel Service Providers and the Interest Group of Temporary Employment Agencies declared that it was now up to the Federal Labor Court to "protect themselves from the constitutionally guaranteed collective bargaining autonomy and to continue to enable the design of working conditions through collective agreements in temporary work in the future, and to do so in a legally secure manner , practical and attractive."
The deputy leader of the Left Party in the Bundestag, Susanne Ferschl, called on the federal government to reverse the collective bargaining exceptions here. "Because although almost the entire industry falls under a collective agreement, many temporary workers can only dream of equal pay for equal work," she explained.
