At the beginning ‘this Act restricted the system to business companies with 11 employees at most, which had the effect of limiting its use to the agricultural and artisanal sectors,’ notes Virginie Xhauflair. Progressively – and thanks to well carried out lobbying - several Acts have allowed the EAs to open up their perspectives, including adding to the farming EAs or ‘classic’ EAs (composed of business within the same activity sector or otherwise) Insertion and Qualification Employers Alliances or ‘non profit’ EAs, essentially bringing together associations from the cultural or sporting world. The result: according to the European Employers Alliances Resource Centre, in 2011 France numbered close to 5,000 EAs...with over 30,000 salaried workers!

In France as elsewhere, the EA constitutes an emblematic example of the radical transformation of work relationships: from being bilateral they have become triangular, between worker, user and legal employer. But in legal terms each worker only has a single employer. In fact ‘the EA has been designed as a response aimed at ensuring that the worker has employment stability,’ insists Virginie Xhauflair. ‘The rule is that of a contract with no fixed term even if, on the ground, certain exceptions can be come across,  with part time jobs sometimes.’

Here, it’s made to measure

In the Netherlands, the pooling systems, called ‘Flex-pools’ (or job pools), were born following the reform of the labour market initiated in the 1990s. They correspond to the wishes of the social partners to conceive of ‘made to measure’ solutions. To achieve this various stakeholders are grouped together within multi-partner organisations which second workers to businesses or business company partnerships, on a regional or sector basis, according to the demands for a labour force. ‘These flex-pools have generally been created in the framework of initiatives co-ordinated between regional authorities, chambers of commerce, employers’ associations and union organisations. More often than not they are managed by temporary employment agencies. The participating companies agree to make use of the pool as a priority to match their needs for a flexible workforce. If one of the pool’s workers is unemployed  for 24 hours a temporary worker employed by the user has to give up their place,’ adds Virginie Xhauflair.

Still in the Netherlands, since 1999 an Act makes provision for the fact that all the workers employed for over 36 months in the context of temporary contracts or who have worked for three consecutive contracts in a business must be granted contracts of no fixed term. This provision also affects people who work in flex-pools. ‘In fact it is rare to find flex-pool workers who are not hired in the mid term by one of the users. In effect, in such a context of versatility their level of qualification rises and is attractive,’ notes Virginie Xhauflair. On the other hand some business companies complain of the higher cost of these workers (an identical index is applied to all). This comment is in particular aimed at people from flex-pools co-managed by union organisations and created with the aim of reinsertion or requalification.

Up until the years 2000 the number of flex-pools was growing, above all in industry and the service sector but also in the value added logistics sector. Nevertheless a number of them have subsequently folded because of the drop in activity in the ports of Amsterdam and Rotterdam, and also because of the increased automation of logistic processes.

An agreement to save jobs

Besides the EAs created in 2006 and 2007 on the model of French EAs, the pooling system principally set up in Germany differs appreciably from that of other countries. Thus the German labour pool does not have the purpose of stabilising workers in a situation of precarity. On the other hand it allows businesses with a surplus workforce to have businesses in the reverse position benefit from a qualified and trained workforce. Born in the Braunschweig region, this system of a virtual grouping of businesses based on a voluntary workforce exchange agreement has thus helped the local mechanical engineering sector to get out of a critical situation.