The Supreme Court Abandoned Agency Workers - www.pau.fi

The Supreme Court Abandoned Agency Workers

In April 2019, I wrote a column titled “This Is How People Are Cheapened.” The day before my column, SOL companies had sent an email to their temporary agency workers at Posti, informing them that in the future they would be offered postal work through SOL Logistiikkapalvelut Oy under cheaper employment terms. The jobs could thus continue, but the collective agreement would change, and the terms of employment would deteriorate in all respects.

That marked the beginning of a long legal process.

The plaintiffs in the case were three members of PAU, all of whom were working at Posti as temporary agency workers for SOL Logistiikkapalvelut when the case began. All of them were covered by the collective agreement concerning delivery personnel (Jakelun työehtosopimus) concluded between the Finnmedia (Medialiitto) and the Industrial Union (Teollisuusliitto), because SOL Logistiikkapalvelut was then—and still is—a member of the Finnmedia. According to SOL, everything was alright, since they had joined an employers’ association that could provide them with a cheaper collective agreement suitable for the sector.

In our view, something is seriously wrong if identical work performed side by side, with the same years of experience, can be subject to significantly different employment terms. Depending on the shift, the earnings of a temporary agency worker paid under the collective agreement concerning delivery personnel may be 30–50% lower than those of a Posti employee—or another agency worker—doing the same job but covered by PAU’s collective labour agreement for the communications and logistics sector.

The EU Temporary Agency Work Directive requires that agency workers are to be treated equally, and according to the directive, their employment conditions should be equal with those of the user company’s own employees. The Court of Justice of the European Union also issued an important preliminary ruling on the matter a few years ago. In the case known as TimePartner, it was confirmed that if agency workers are paid lower wages, this must be compensated with other, better benefits. In the case of SOL, this has not been done; not only wages but all other employment conditions are weaker than those applied to Posti’s own employees.

After everything said above, it is incomprehensible that a majority of the Supreme Court’s justices (the votes were split 3–2) chose to accept the cheapening agency workers’ terms carried out by SOL. We have, of course, known that the legislator has drafted the provisions of the Employment Contracts Act concerning agency workers’ employment conditions poorly. But even that should not allow for a complete disregard of the principles of the Temporary Agency Work Directive.

Perhaps most surprising was that the Supreme Court refused the request made in the claim to seek a preliminary ruling from the Court of Justice of the European Union. Since no preliminary ruling was requested, the EU Court’s position on SOL’s practices remains unknown at this stage.

But this is not the end of the matter. Although the Supreme Court abandoned the agency workers and accepted their unequal treatment, PAU will not accept it. We still have the possibility to file a complaint with the European Commission, whose legal services will then examine whether there are grounds to initiate infringement proceedings. And we will, of course, do everything in our power to ensure that the legislation on this issue is rewritten in the future so that it does not allow unequal treatment of agency workers.

The work for equal treatment of agency workers continues!

The Supreme Court ruled in the PAU agency workers case in favor of the employer. The Court held that SOL Logistiikkapalvelut Oy has the right to apply the collective agreement concerning delivery personnel (Jakelun työehtosopimus) in the employment relationships of agency workers at postal centers. The decision was reached by a 3–2 vote.

Heidi Nieminen
Chairman