Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs publishes new draft bill to amend the Temporary Employment Act

After months of dispute between the governing parties on temporary work, the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs announced a draft bill on amendments to the Temporary Employment Act based on the draft bill from November 2015.

The Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs published planned amendments to the Temporary Employment Act in a draft dated November 16, 2015. Among other things, this draft provided for a specification of the term "temporary" in Section 1 (1) sentence 2 AÜG. According to the draft bill, the maximum permissible duration of temporary workers is 18 months, whereby the collective bargaining parties of the companies concerned may provide for deviating regulations. Furthermore, the principle of equal pay is to apply at the latest after twelve months of employment of the temporary worker. The draft also contains a ban on temporary work in a company affected by a strike. Temporary workers are to apply to the thresholds under works constitution law in the same way as employees of the hirer company. Finally, the draft bill from November 2015 included a definition of the term "employee" in Section 611 a of the German Civil Code (BGB) using an eight-point catalog.

Following criticism of the draft law from 16.11.2015, the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs published a new draft amendment to the Temporary Employment Act on 01.06.2016. The draft law is dated 17.02.2016.

Essentially, the newly published draft law retains the maximum permitted temporary employment period of 18 months. Collective agreements may deviate from this. It is now also possible for companies not bound by collective agreements to deviate from the maximum permissible assignment period under certain conditions. The regulations on the maximum permitted duration of temporary employment will now be included in Section 1 (1) (b) AÜG. The maximum time limit up to which the principle of equal pay for temporary workers may be deviated from is now 15 months instead of the original 12 months. Finally, the redefinition of the term "employee" in Section 611 a BGB is to be based on the general principles of the case law of the Federal Labor Court.

This is only an excerpt of the most important changes to the Temporary Employment Act. Further information can be found at:

h ttp://w ww.bmas.de/DE/Presse/Pressemitteilungen/2016/pk-leiharbeit-werkvertraege.html

Date: 16. Jun 2016