New EU Directive, if passed, would give temporary workers same rights as permanent staff.

The Times carried a report in yesterday’s online edition highlighting a new EU Directive that aims to give temporary or part-time workers the same rights as permanent workers. These are to include perks like holiday entitlements, sick pay and even pensions.

Of course the Unions have received the news with great joy (why wouldn’t they?) claiming victory over unscrupulous employers who exploit “the scandalous lack of protection given to temporary and agency workers, which creates difficulties for good employers who have to compete” – this referring to the fact that many employers offer employees or potential employees with only temporary or contract work to escape from the giving of those perks as mentioned above. But is this new piece going to solve any of the problems highlighted? I very much doubt it. I think it will make it worse.

Firstly, as mentioned in the article, employers are likely to cut back on the number of part-timers they take in, requiring existing employees to make up the hours. This would, in the CBI’s estimation, result in a quarter of a million temporary workers losing their jobs. Secondly, I actually think that, provided one is hard working enough, he could earn much more than a permanent employee under the present system. The reason why I say this is because if you were to take the salaries of many professionals (e.g. lawyers), minus tax etc and then divided by the number of hours that they are already required to work, it would seem that working those same hours on a minimum wage could be more profitable (unfortunately this may not apply to the Europeans and Brits because of their work ethic). With that in mind, employers may not be so unscrupulous after all. To expect them to then have to provide medical benefits etc would certainly be too costly and unreasonable.

In other words, this may lead to more people being unemployed and others being overworked.
For many of us Singaporeans who have lived, studied, and found work (or attempted to find work) in the UK, we know that the EU has a penchant for the ridiculous – with many of its laws often puzzling us. They seem to constantly implement rules and regulations which complicate and unsettle the status quo, making things more unstable (economically – by making the EU more exclusive and creating more barriers to entry) and extremely inefficient.

To us, medical benefits are not even expected for many permanent employees, let alone temporary ones. This even though, we do not have free medical care in Singapore as they do in the UK. The same goes for sick pay, holidays, and pensions. What pensions? The Government is now encouraging people to work in old age, by raising the retirement age yet again. Despite civil servants officially being required to work a 5 day week, many in the private sector are working much longer hours at no extra pay. The system works efficiently – no additional perks, no medical benefits, no demonstrations, no strikes – just like clockwork.

One can also be sure that having a system like the one proposed by the new directive would inevitably lead to abuse. Bearing in mind that the Europeans probably do not share our work ethic, I’m sure that many will be tempted to “call in sick” more often (especially since its common practice to “self medicate” for approximately a week and not be required to get a medical certificate from your doctor each and every time you’re taken ill).