work
ECJ on temporary work: No entitlement to permanent employment
“Cour de Justice de l’union Européene”: The European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. Photo: Arne Immanuel Bänsch/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
Hundreds of thousands are employed in Germany as temporary workers. A CJEU ruling now makes it clear: EU law does not provide for a right to permanent employment, even if you have worked in the same company for years.
Anyone who has been doing the same job for a company for years as a temporary worker is not necessarily entitled to a permanent position with this company.
This emerges from a published judgment of the European Court of Justice (ECJ). The decision states that “the agency worker cannot derive any subjective right to establish an employment relationship with the user company from Union law”.
The background is the case of a man who worked for 55 months from 2014 to 2019 as a temporary worker at Daimler and who is now suing for a permanent employment relationship. In its judgment, the ECJ also emphasized that it could be abusive to use a worker in the same job for years, but all relevant circumstances, especially the peculiarities of the industry and national regulations, must also be taken into account. According to German law, a period of 18 months has been in force for employment with the same hirer since 2017, but this can be extended via a collective agreement.
“We welcome the decision of the ECJ that Union law does not justify an employment relationship, and see our legal opinion confirmed in this respect,” said a spokeswoman for Mercedes-Benz AG. However, one sees a certain leeway with the national court, so the final decision from Germany must be awaited.
Werner Stolz, General Manager of the German Temporary Employment Agency (IDZ) association, said: “Fortunately, the court continues to give the green light to deviate from the maximum leasing period through collective agreements in the application industry.” Specifically, the judgment shows that the parties to the collective agreement, i.e. representatives of employees and employers, can agree on appropriate rules among themselves.
The number of temporary workers in Germany has increased in recent years until shortly before the start of the corona pandemic. According to the latest figures from the Federal Employment Agency, there were around 865,000 people in temporary work in 2013; the average for 2018 was more than a million. In 2020 – in the first year of the pandemic – the number fell to a good 740,000 in the meantime, but was again more than 830,000 in mid-2021. More recent figures from the Federal Agency are not available, but the IDZ reports a continuing upward trend.
With a share of almost 30 percent, most temporary workers work in warehousing. Metal processing follows at a clear distance of almost more than 20 percentage points. But there are also many temporary workers in mechanical engineering, offices and secretariats.