Press Release No. 30/2010 IG Metall Calls for Improvements to the Draft Bill Against the Abuse of Temporary Labor

Leipzig – IG Metall has reiterated its criticism of the federal government’s draft bill aimed at preventing the abuse of temporary agency work. “This draft bill is an outrage,” said IG Metall President Berthold Huber to an audience of about 300 works council members on Wednesday in Leipzig. It lacks a general equal pay provision. The principle of equal pay applies only when employees are assigned to their previous employer. This is no real gain, Huber argued, because the draft effectively legitimizes the outsourcing of temporary workers. “What was previously considered abuse is now becoming the legally regulated norm,” Huber criticized.

Furthermore, the draft bill lacks a prohibition on synchronization. The duration of employment with the temporary staffing agency and the duration of the assignment may still coincide. There is also no maximum duration for the assignment and no declaration of general applicability for the collectively bargained minimum wage. “Everything is actually missing,” Huber stated, calling on Labor Minister Ursula von der Leyen to thoroughly revise the draft bill.

With an eye toward the World Day for Decent Work on October 7, the IG Metall leader lamented that temporary workers, alongside the unemployed, have become a second industrial reserve army. “The growth of precarious employment and the low-wage sector is gradually eroding collective bargaining-regulated labor relations,” Huber said. If more and more people enter companies through temporary agency work, fixed-term contracts, and internships, this will eventually have consequences for permanent staff as well. Huber called for a new culture of work. “We did not make our contribution to solving the crisis just to then play the role of the Moor who has done his duty and can leave.”

The economic recovery is opening up new opportunities that the union will take advantage of. “We want work that allows for personal development; work that is challenging but not unnecessarily or excessively stressful, and that doesn’t make people sick.” Employees demand fair and respectful treatment in their day-to-day work lives, where their concerns are taken seriously. “We don’t want to be mere objects of corporate decisions; we want to have a say and help shape the future,” Huber demanded.