#62025CC0136Temporary agency work after a business transfer
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This Advocate General opinion addresses how to count the maximum legal period for a temporary agency worker when the business using that worker is transferred to a new owner during the assignment. The practical issue is whether the old and new operators should be treated as the same user undertaking. If they are, the worker’s time before and after the transfer counts together, which can trigger consequences under national law, including a direct employment relationship with the user business if the maximum period is exceeded.
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Key Changes
- Clarifies how temporary agency assignment limits may apply when a user business changes ownership.
- Addresses whether the transferor and transferee should be treated as the same user undertaking for calculating the maximum assignment period.
- Highlights that uninterrupted work in the same role may count toward the same assignment period despite a business transfer.
Obligations
What this law requires
The opinion concerns whether, for calculating a national maximum temporary-agency assignment period, the transferor and transferee of a transferred undertaking should be treated as the same user undertaking when the worker continues in the same job without interruption.
Directive 2008/104/EC permits Member States to set a maximum period after which a temporary agency worker’s assignment can no longer be treated as temporary.
If the applicable national maximum assignment period is exceeded, national law may deem a direct employment relationship to have arisen between the user undertaking and the temporary agency worker.
Directive 2001/23/EC is relevant because it safeguards employees’ rights when an undertaking is transferred to another owner, and the opinion analyzes its interaction with temporary agency work rules.