The UK got an unexpected reprieve from the Temporary Agency Workers Directive (TAWD) as member states could not reach agreement on this highly controversial piece of legislation.

The purpose of the directive is to impose a common set of rules across all contractor and temporary workers in Europe to bring their benefits in line with permanent employees.

If these changes get the go-ahead it will mean that once temporary workers have completed the qualifying period (thought to be as little as just six weeks), they will gain full employment rights from their employer. This means temporary workers will receive the same treatment on many of the following:
                     - Pay
                      - Holiday and sick pay, maternity leave
                      - Travel expense allowance
                      - Medical insurance

The reasoning provided by the Eurocrats is that the new rules are supposed to help the EU "become the most competitive and most dynamic knowledge based economy in the world, capable of sustained economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion". Well when you put it like that..!

First proposed in 2002, the TAWD has met stiff opposition from the CBI and TUC here in the UK. But unfortunately, as is often the case with the idea of a Utopian Europe; what is good for most EU states is bad for the UK!

The UK, having one of the highest rates of temporary workers in Europe (thought to be around 3% of the workforce), stand to lose the most if this legislation is passed. Around one quarter of a million workers in the UK will be affected.

It is also expected that the proposed qualifying period would introduce incentives for employers to terminate temporary workers' contracts just prior to the end of the period.

There are of course some supporters of the TAWD in the UK. The Communication Workers Union (CWU) was very disappointed with the reprieve calling the decision "a huge blow to the hopes of thousands of agency workers in the UK who were expecting their politicians to fight for the end to unequal treatment in the workplace".

With the French taking up the EU presidency between July-December 2008, the TAWD is likely to be raised once again and probably alongside the equally controversial Working Time Directive (which imposes endless red-tape for anyone working over 48 hours in one week).

Less TAWD and more TWADLE!

Does this spell the end to freelancing as we know it?