The consultation had two main objectives: First to analyse how to improve the protection of employees in all kinds of employment relationships against possible infringements of their rights under the directive, which may be extended in a revision of the directive, and second to establish how to reach a greater transparency on the labour market by ensuring an easy identification of the working conditions applicable to any specific categories of employees.

In its response to the second phase of the consultation, CESI calls:

• to broaden the application of the Directive, which currently provides too many loopholes to exempt groups of economically active people from the scope of it. This refers especially to those with ‘independent’ status in bogus self-employment, trainees, and those active in so far largely unregulated new forms of employment. This broadening should go hand in hand with the development of a shared definition of the term ’employment relationship’ based on the CJEU case C-66/85 which referred to it as “a certain period of time [during which] a person performs services for and under the direction of another person in return for which he receives remuneration”;

• to take this new definition as a basis to provide everyone with essential labour and social protection which is addressed in other EU legislation;

• to forbid exclusivity clauses in all employment other than full-time work contracts; and

• to introduce a general right for workers to have non-permanent work contracts converted to full-time work contracts after prolonged periods of non-standard employment or successive fixed-term contracts.

CESI’s full position is available here.