The Court of Justice has confirmed that Directive 1999/70/EC on fixed-term work does not apply to the fixed-term employment relationship between an agency worker and a temporary-work agency.[13] Consequently, even if agency workers are employed under a fixed-term contract of employment, their three-way employment relationship is not governed by the Directive on fixed-term work, which only applies to direct employment relationships between an employer and a worker.

The purpose of this Directive is to ensure the protection of temporary agency workers and to improve the quality of temporary agency work by ensuring that the principle of equal treatment, as set out in Article 5, is applied to temporary agency workers, and by recognising temporary-work agencies as employers, while taking into account the need to establish a suitable framework for the use of temporary agency work with a view to contributing effectively to the creation of jobs and to the development of flexible forms of working.

Temporary agency workers are employed by a temporary-work agency and temporarily placed at the disposal of user undertakings.

In addition, by restricting competition between temporary employment agencies, these obstacles are likely to cause financial disadvantages for both their clients and the temporary workers themselves, limiting the choices open to them and hence their scope for negotiation on the price of temporary work or the wage paid.

- 5 - - lastly, it is specifically provided that the employer must specify in the contract of temporary employment the grounds for recourse to this type of employment relationship; with respect to temporary workers, the Member States must take the appropriate measures to ensure that clauses prohibiting or preventing the conclusion of a contract of employment between the user undertaking and employee of a temporary employment business are null and void or capable of being declared so. The proposal for a Council Directive on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to certain employment relationships with regard to dist ...[+++]ortions of competition (based on Article 100 A of the Treaty) contains two vital types of provision : - firstly, provisions leading to unfair competition between enterprises regarding the social protection of workers concerned by this Directive (part time and temporary workers) be eliminated, including also elements concerning paid leave, dismissal allowances and seniority allowances in relation to full time employees- in proportion of the total hours worked.

Lastly, the fixed-duration contract may be used to recruit workers for a new activity not certain to last; b) temporary employment covering any relationship between the temporary employment business (employer), the temporary employee and the user undertaking.