Legal Regulation of Temporary Agency Work (Правовое Регулирование Заемного Труда)

This monograph analyzes regulation of temporary agency work on the basis of comparative as well as law and economics methods. Temporary agency work is a flexible employment arrangement involving three parties - employer, employee and a specialized agency. It emerged in Russia and some other former Soviet Union republics as a result of their transition to a market economy. Although increasingly used in these countries it explicitly contradicts national labour regulations. Russian trade unions and left-wing political groups oppose temporary agency work and any attempts to “legalize” it. At the same time, international labour law as well as European Union law permit and regulate temporary agency work. It is suggested that in the absence of any legal regulation of temporary agency work, this form of employment is squeezed into the informal economy which creates uncertainty for all parties involved. The monograph examines in detail the economic rationales of temporary agency work arrangements and its role on the labour market. It then examines relevant regulations adopted by the International Labour Organization, the European Union, Germany and the Netherlands. The monograph concludes by making specific recommendations as to regulation of temporary agency work in Russian law and proposes a draft federal law on temporary agency work. The proposed regulatory model aims to introduce more flexibility to balance the regulator's interest to reduce unemployment, the employer’s interest to optimize labour costs and the employees’ interests to be adequately protected in the framework of this flexible employment arrangement. The full text of the monograph is in Russian (160 pages).