Posted workers — the European Posting of Workers Directive



Under the European Posting of Workers Directive 1996, all workers temporarily working in an EU state currently have the right to the same statutory minimum terms and conditions as permanent workers in that state.


Posted workers do not qualify for full equal treatment rights under EU free movement principles.
Instead, the Posting of Workers Directive provides posted workers with a minimum core of rights, including minimum rates of pay, working time, health and safety and anti-discrimination rights. 



The Directive was meant to prevent employers importing temporary labour to undercut national employment standards and pay rates. However, the Directive’s effectiveness has always been limited because as long as employers meet basic rights such as the national minimum wage, they do not have to pay the collectively agreed rate for the job. This was the background to the 2009 Lindsey Oil Refinery dispute, when Italian and Portuguese workers were brought to the UK by Italian company IREM to work on a Total Oil construction site in Lincolnshire, undercutting local workers.



In March 2016, the European Commission launched a new initiative to revise the Directive to tackle differences in pay, based broadly on the principle of “equal pay for the same work in the same place”, and proposing rights, such as the right to claim unfair dismissal, for these workers after 24 months. Discussions over these proposals encountered significant opposition among member states, mainly from Central and Eastern Europe.



Separately, the EU enacted a new Posting of Workers Enforcing Directive, to be implemented by member states by June 2016, to improve enforcement cooperation between member states, but the UK government maintained that its existing enforcement machinery was adequate.



In practice, there is now considerable uncertainty as a result of the UK’s vote to leave the European Union. The long-term future treatment of temporary workers from the EU will depend on the outcome of the Brexit negotiations (see box on page 19).