The REC’s battle to prevent the European Commission introducing swingeing measures, which could force companies to pay temporary staff wages decided by national collective bargaining, have suffered a setback.

Talks to establish an agency directive between the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) and its social partner, the Union of Industrial and Employers’ Confederations of Europe (UNICE), which represents the REC and European employers, broke down last month after wrangling over legal technicalities.

The European Commission will now draft the directive amid fears that the left-wing ETUC could influence the Commission to introduce collective bargaining for agency workers’ wages in the UK.

Christine Little, the REC’s representative in the negotiations said: ‘The REC should now be lobbying to make sure the UK recruitment industry retains the flexibility that it has at the moment.’

Marcia Roberts, director of external relations for the REC, told Professional Recruiter that the Confederation would be lobbying on behalf of UK recruiters.

The influential commissioner Diane Diamantopolou, who initiated the talks, favours a directive to regulate employment agencies.

The commission will spend around a year drafting the directive, followed by an interpretation period where member states draft domestic legislation to comply with it - a process that could take two to three years in total.

UNICE blamed the breakdown of the talks on the ETUC, which it described as ‘inflexible’. The union’s president Georges Jacobs said: ‘The lack of flexibility on the part of the ETUC seems to indicate that the trade unions regard temporary agency work as a threat. European employers have offered temporary agency workers legal protection against discrimination - our disagreement relates to how a comparable worker is defined.’

But an ETUC spokesman blamed UNICE for the talks’ failure: ‘The ETUC now expects the European Commission to rapidly present a legislative proposal assuring equal treatment and a good level of protection for temporary agency workers,’ he said.