Temporary employment agencies may not supply workers for dangerous jobs

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At the end of February 1999, a new decree regulating minimum health and safety provisions for temporary employment agencies in Spain came into force. Under the decree's provisions, such agencies may not supply workers for potentially dangerous jobs.

At the end of February 1999, a decree on minimum health and safety regulations covering temporary employment agencies (TEA s) came into force. The decree is a development of Law 31/1995 on the Prevention of Occupational Risks and of the EU Directive on improvements in the safety and health at work of workers with a fixed-duration or temporary employment relationship (91/383/EEC). Both establish that workers in TEAs should enjoy the same level of protection with respect to health and safety as the workforce of the company in which they provide services.

With this aim, the new decree lays down the health and safety obligations of user companies and TEAs. According to the current model of TEAs in Spain, TEAs are the employers of their workers. There is an employment contract between the worker and the TEA, and the services of the worker are supplied through a business contract between the TEA and the user company. However, in certain respects, the user company acts as the employer, because during the period for which the service is provided it manages and monitors the workers concerned and is responsible for their health and safety. In the context of this "triangular" relationship, the decree regulates the obligations (mainly in relation to information disclosure and training) of both user companies and TEAs when they sign a service contract.

However, the most innovative part of the decree is that it prohibits the use of TEAs to cover jobs involving special danger. These are jobs in which preventive measures are not sufficient to guarantee the safety of the workers of TEAs. The social partners had asked the government to regulate this matter in their April 1997 intersectoral agreements (ES9706211F), but this commitment had not become effective until now. The decree thus prohibits the use of TEAs in the following activities (which because of their special danger are normally already governed by health and safety regulations):

• work on building sites;

• work in open-cast and underground mines;

• work characteristic of the extraction industries for surveying the surface of the land;

• work on marine platforms;

• work directly related to the production, handling and use of explosives;

• work involving exposure to ionising radiation;

• work involving exposure to agents that are carcinogenic, mutagenic or toxic for reproduction;

• work involving exposure to biological agents; and

• work involving risks of high-voltage electricity.