On the 10 June 2008, in the latest in a line of anonymous looking concrete buildings on the windswept plateau of Kirchberg, Luxembourg, 52 politicians from 27 member states sat down to the 2,876 Council meeting. The Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council (to give it its correct name) decides employment laws in Europe. The politicians meet in an oval shaped auditorium of over a 1,000 square meters with 100 seats in the front row to ensure that no-one feels left out. With space for a further 1,000 participants, there is ample room for the many hundreds of bureaucrats that any European meeting requires.

Despite the bureaucracy, the council under the leadership of Slovenia reached “political agreement” on two of the most contentious issues (working time and agency workers), that have defeated at least 6 other European Presidencies over the last four or five years. The same meeting also reached agreement on a shed load of other proposals, including: guidelines for the employment policies; two draft regulations concerning the coordination of social security systems; a recommendation on enhanced administrative cooperation on the posting of workers; the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action concerning Girl Child and Women in political decision-making; and something to do with antimicrobial resistance, to name a few.

What member states politicians have done is to reach a political agreement linking working time and agency workers together. In effect this means that the broad outline has been agreed and it will be for national civil servants to agree the final text.

The main points of the agreement in the working time directive are:

• On-call time to be split into active and inactive on-call time. Active on-call time to be counted as working time
• Inactive on-call time may not be counted as rest time and can be counted as working time if national laws or social partners agree
• Standard maximum limit remains at 48 working hours per week unless an individual worker chooses otherwise (UK opt-out)
• New protective limit (cap) for workers who opt out: maximum working week of 60 hours unless social partners agree otherwise
• New cap for workers who opt-out if inactive on-call time is counted as working time: maximum working week of 65 hours
• The cap protects all workers employed for longer than 10 weeks with one employer
• Opt-out only under certain conditions, such as: no signature during first month of employment, no victimisation for not signing or withdrawing opt-out, employers must keep records on working hours of opted-out workers

The main points of agreement in the temporary agency workers directive are:

• Equal treatment as of day one for temporary agency workers as well as regular workers in terms of pay, maternity leave and leave
• Possibility to derogate from this through collective agreements and through agreements between social partners at national level
• Temporary agency workers to be informed about permanent employment opportunities in the user enterprise
• Equal access to collective facilities (canteen, child care facilities, transport service)
• Member states have to improve temporary agency workers access to training and child care facilities in periods between their assignments so as to increase their employability
• Member states have to ensure penalties for non-compliance by temporary agencies and enterprises.
Once the text has been finalised there will be a formal vote at a future council meeting. This really is just a formality. However, the big issue will be the attitude of the European Parliament. Both proposals are subject to co-decision with the European Parliament.

This means that they have to agree it and can block it. The track record of the EU Parliament is not good. Invariably on employment matters they act in a reactionary and protectionist manner and are hostile to individual rights taking their lead from the European trade union movement. Sensing this Vladimír Špidla, EU commissioner for employment, social affairs and equal opportunities strongly welcomed the agreement and stated, “The ball is now in the court of the European Parliament and I sincerely hope that this solid agreement will find a majority”. It will be several months before this issue is resolved, and based on past experience HR professionals should expect some change before these issues are finally agreed. Watch this space is the message.