WE learn today that the European Commission wants to force all employers to grant identical employee rights for temporary staff.
The proposal is not only that temporary employees would have the same wage rates but also holiday allowances, pension
provision, health insurance and all other strands of benefit. The implications are so alarming that even the CBI may awaken from its torpor on all matters European.
There are several reasons our economy enjoys a vitality not experienced on the Continent. One of those is our far more adaptable and fluid employment market. It remains a tricky and expensive act to offer employment and most who persist in the habit are punished further by Income Tax and National Insurance.
More than a million Brits are classed as temporary staff. These are not humble roles. Temps tend to be better qualified and more diligent than others. Agencies have an interest in always enhancing the abilities of those on their books and by choosing to be in the temporary market those people are illustrating their high adaptability.
The Commission believes it can simply impose uniformity - mostly of price.
This will be a true catastrophe for our jobs market. We need more flexibility in employment. Will the Government be so mesmerised by its mirage ambition of "influence" in Brussels that it will let our labour market atrophy?
Probably.
East meets West THE exchanges between George Bush and Junichiro Koizumi, the Prime Minister of Japan, have the makings of a good comedy script. The leaders of the two largest economies are sharing baffling economic reversals.
The US blames the internet bubble, amplified by September 11. The Japanese blame their bankers for dud loans. Japan is reluctant to let its banks fail - in other words the markets cannot perform their main task of telling the truth.
If Japan and America can reanimate their economies the sunshine will warm the rest of the world. We have to wish them well.
The answer, as always, is to open up each others markets. The Japanese are attached to silly policies of subsidising their farmers. If Japan bought its food on the world market that would free up its crowded acres. The USA too is still encumbered with too many trade restrictions. It is only Canadians and Mexicans that can really trade freely with America.
President Bush is predisposed to talk nonsense but he is not yet a protectionist.
Back on boardTHE authorities, which broadly means Gordon Brown, want British companies to appoint better non executive directors. The Enron fiasco looks like rippling through to every plc boardroom.
At the moment too many non-executives are merely golfing buddies who are members of an unseen but effective web of mutual protection - and sometimes silence. The Government wants non-exec directors to be the active allies of the shareholders and ready to be loud whistleblowers.
They are devising daft processes to ensure better appointments are made in future. They need only remember self-interest is what animates us all. A simple rule stipulating non-executives can only be paid in shares will focus their minds very clearly. Never again would the conversation return to golf.
