The EU has significantly contributed to improving the position of Essay

The EU has significantly contributed to improving the position of atypical workers - Essay Example In these years, there have emerged new forms of work with the changing corporate cultures and requirements of work. These forms include part time work, self employed work, temporary agency work, and others. The number of ‘atypical workers’ has been rising in recent years in the European Union. The broad class of an atypical worker in the EU includes workers on fixed term contracts, construction industry workers, agency workers etc. But unlike a ‘typical’, regular, full-time employee, these atypical workers are guaranteed fewer occupational rights and protection as dictated by the legislation1. This is so because they deviate considerably from the definition of ‘standard’ occupation and regular labour laws seldom apply to them (Broughton, 2010, p.2). But over the past decade, there have been legislations in order to protect the rights of these workers. For example, the Council Directive of December 1997 and June 1999, concerning the framework on part-time and fixed-time work respectively. In the EU, there have been many directions picked to regulate the atypical workers. One of the attempts made was to make sure that the workers and their type of work is not discriminated, thus a new legal concept was regulated which stated that the category of ‘employment’ set under the legal framework, and the subordination criteria not to be used as an instrument to discriminate between the workers of the organization. However, in 2005, the Commission’s Communication on the Social Agenda proposed the Green Paper which was to analyse the work patterns and the position of the labour law to enhance the development of the trends of work. The Green Paper was ‘Modernizing labour law to meet the challenges of the 21st century’ and it was presented in 2006. It subjected to the increase of the atypical contracts with the strong integration of women and older workers represented too2. Another direction taken by the EU on the