Suchergebnisse

This contribution provides an analytical overview of recent case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union on the framework agreement on fixed-term work (FTW agreement). The cases discussed virtually all concerned fixed-term work in the public sector and, in essence, raise the delicate question of whether the non-discrimination rule and the rules on fighting abuse of successive fixed-term employment relationships, demand from Member States to sacrifice classic notions of public service employment. The case law reveals that the Court leaves the Member States considerable discretion in hiring fixed-term workers instead of permanent workers or civil servants.

AbstractWhether labor market competition is shaping anti-immigration attitudes is a contentious issue. We conduct a novel test of ethnic competition theory by comparing the attitudes toward immigration of workers with fixed-term contracts to those with permanent jobs in Europe. Fixed-term contract workers are particularly at risk of competition as they have to compete for jobs in the foreseeable future. In the first step of our investigation, we analyze cross-sectional data (European Social Survey, 2002–18) from 18 Western European countries. We find that—contrary to our expectation—fixed-term workers are less anti-immigration. The effect is substantively small. In the second step, we use a fixed-effects design with longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP, 1999–2015) to rule out time-constant unobserved heterogeneity. We find that transitioning from a fixed to a permanent contract does not affect anti-immigration attitudes. Our combined results thus add to the growing body of studies that do not find evidence for labor market competition as an explanation of anti-immigrant attitudes.

While fixed-term work benefits employers and increases the prospects of employability of various categories of workers, it is inherently precarious. The European Union (EU) directive on fixed-term work emphasizes the importance of equal treatment of workers on fixed-term contracts with comparable permanent workers and aims to prevent abuse of this contract form. Surprisingly, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) rulings in this area have by and large been neglected in comparative labour market research. We fill this gap by systematically analysing the CJEU case law concerning fixed-term work and connecting it to the literatures on labour market dualization and Europeanization of labour law. We develop an analytical framework to analyse the Europeanization of labour law, which we then use to analyse the directive and the case law regarding the directive on fixed-term work. Our findings show that the equal treatment is affirmed in all cases under analysis for different provisions of labour contracts. With regard to abuse of recourse to fixed-term contracts, by contrast, the rulings still represent a zone of legal uncertainty, whereby some judgments allow for fixed-term contracts, such as for social policy purposes, while others prohibit their use. We therefore conclude that the CJEU does not put a brake on labour market dualization, but it does insist on equal treatment of workers, regardless of their contractual arrangements.

The article analyses legislation issued in 2001 in Germany, a flag-ship project by the then Conservative government aimed to create a more visible and legitimate status for atypical work predominantly taken up by women. It considers in how far the legislation achieves its stated aim of securing equal treatment rights for these employees, and also whether it complies with EU legislation. Further, the article discusses critically whether the regulation of atypical work results in a new and more adequate concept of inclusive employment or rather cements existing discrimination.

The question of sufficient protection of academics employed with successive fixed-term employment contracts or relationships in the university sector had been raised in several procedures before the Court of Justice of the European Union (hereafter: CJEU). These cases deal with the substantive basis of the claims of the academics. Admissibility of their claims was not an issue. Unlike the research dealing with the substantive basis of the claims of academics based on the Framework agreement on fixed-term work, this article deals with a ruling on the admissibility of the plea based on the Framework agreement on fixed-term work encountered by academics in the Flemish Community of Belgium. The article first outlines the exception from general labour law in the Higher Education Code of the Flemish Community of Belgium that allows universities to employ academics indefinitely with fixed-term relationships through the practice of a mosaic combination of a part-time statutory employment under administrative law and a part-time contractual employment under labour law. It then discusses the impact of the exceptions on the admissibility of claims for damages, compensation and reinstatement by fixed-term academics at a Flemish public university based on the violation of Council Directive 1999/70/EC and Framework agreement on fixed-term work concluded by ETUC, UNICE and CEEP brought before the Council of State, which is the supreme administrative court of Belgium. The author argues that the Belgian Council of State incorrectly applied Directive 1999/70/EC and the Framework agreement on fixed-term work in judgment no. 247.434 of April 21, 2020, while it was – in its capacity of supreme administrative court of Belgium – under the obligation of Article 267 TFEU to refer for a preliminary ruling to the CJEU. The refusal by the Belgian Council of State to refer questions for a preliminary ruling to the CJEU and a wrong interpretation of Union law could result i. a. in State liability for damage resulting from breach of its obligations under Community law whereas the CJEU could have helped the Belgian Council of State in a preliminary ruling to determine the concept of 'successive' employment relationships, preventive measures and measures to punish abuse of fixed term contracts in Flemish universities, rule whether the articles in the Flemish Higher Education Code on vacancies and employment of fixed-term academic staff violate the Council Directive 1999/70/EC and Framework agreement on fixed-term work, and whether national Belgian procedural law makes the application for fixed-term academic staff at a Flemish public university virtually impossible or excessively difficult and therefore incompatible with the principle of effectiveness of Union law. ; Gracienne Lauwers – profesor i wykładowca na Free University of Brussels, a także profesor wizytujący na Uniwersytecie Wileńskim, Uniwersytecie Witolda Wielkiego oraz na University of Trento. ; Gracienne Lauwers – Prof. dr, Free University of Brussels, Professor at Free University of Brussels, University of the Free State, visiting professor at Vilnius University, Vytautas Magnus University, University of Trento. ; Free University of Brussels, Belgium; Vytautas Magnus University, Vilnius University, Lithuania; University of the Free State, South Africa ; Blanpain R., European Labour Law, 12th edition, Wolters Kluwer, 2010. ; de la Porte C., Emmenegger P., The Court of Justice of the European Union and fixed-term workers: still fixed, but at least equal, European trade union institute Working Paper 2016.01, ETUI aisbl, Brussels 2016. ; Koukiadaki A., Katsaroumpas I., Temporary contracts, precarious employment, employees' fundamental rights and EU employment law, Directorate-General For Internal Policies, Policy Department C, Citizens' Rights And Constitutional Affairs Of The European Parliament, European Union, 2017 (http://www.europarl.europa.eu/supporting-analyses). ; Lenaerts K., Maselis I., Gutman K., EU Procedural Law, 1st ed., Oxford 2014. ; Sulpice K., Picard S., Clauwaert S., Fixed-term work in EU-25: one protective framework, several national contexts: an ETUC perspective, (in:) R. Blanpain, C. Grant (eds.), Fixed-term employment contracts: a comparative study, Brugge, Vanden Broele 2009. ; 25 ; 4 ; 209 ; 231

Since the beginning of the 1980s, an increase in the number of fixed-term employment contracts has been apparent in a number of free-market-oriented economies. This has been accompanied by amendments to the pertinent legislation. From the early to mid-1980s, a number of EC countries initiated legislation with the object of facilitating the conclusion of fixed-term contracts. How is this development to be assessed from an economic point of view?