Contemporary Developments in EC Law Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Contemporary Developments in EC Law - Case Study Example The arbitrator's decision in such matters was held to be legally binding without providing the right of appeal. The EEC Treaty - Article 118a states that the Member States should pay particular attention to encouraging improvements. This is to be especially enforced in the working environment giving special emphasis to the health and safety of workers. Further, the Member States' objective should be the harmonization of conditions, with due attention being given to maintaining the improvements already made. In order to help achieve this objective the Council, acting by a qualified majority on a proposal from the Commission, in cooperation with the European Parliament and after consulting the Economic and Social Committee, should adopt, by means of directives, minimum requirements for gradual implementation, taking into consideration the conditions and technical rules obtaining in each of the Member States. The provisions adopted pursuant to this Article should not prevent any Member State from maintaining or introducing more stringent measures, which are formulated for the express purpose of protecting the working conditions of workers, compatible with this Treaty. Employees on fixed term contracts should be treated as favorably as permanent workers are. There are two sets of regulations required to implement the EC Fixed Term Work Directive 1999/70/EC (the Fixed-Term Employees (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2002 and the Part-time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2000 (Amendment) Regulations 2002). The basic idea of the new fixed term work regulations is to make it unlawful to treat a fixed-term employee less favourably than a comparable non-fixed term employee engaged in similar work (subject to a defense of objective justification). Several other related issues are also covered, notably automatic conversion of fixed term contracts to contracts of indefinite length after four years; removal of the current ability for an employee to agree that he will not claim statutory redundancy pay on expiry of a fixed term; and making the completion of a task contract count as dismissal for unfair dismis sal purposes. The basic idea of the new part time work regulations is to ensure that it is not possible for an employer to "escape" from the fixed term work regulations by employing fixed term workers on a part time basis. (Employment Law, 28th April 2004 ). From the foregoing, it is evident that Sonja though a non-fixed term employee, has the rights that the regular workers have. We arrive at this conclusion based on the EC Fixed Term Work Directive 1999/70/EC, which states that the treatment meted out to non-fixed term and fixed term employees should be the same. When such is, the case Sonja should have been provided with protective gear. Since, she was not provided with protective gear, at least her hospitalization bills should have been paid in full. Since the questions of Sonja's rights are settled unequivocally, it remains to consider as to how Sonja is to gain redressal for her grievance. In this regard, the recent developments in the EC Law are next enumerated, health and safety has been given wide prominence in the EU context. It encompasses not only the avoidance of accidents and prevention of disease but also all aspects of the worker's