Decent Flexibility

Decent Flexibility: The Impact of ILO Convention 181 and the Regulation on Temporary Agency Work' aims to create awareness that flexibility in the labour market is allowed if decently regulated. Within the context of social law, temporary agency work has always been a subject of debate. The pursuit of more flexible forms of labour is at odds with maintaining decent labour relations. For that reason, ever since it was established, the UN organization for labour issues, International Labour Organization (ILO), has focused on private work placement. In its early years, it tended to prohibit or severely restrict private work placement, but gradually it came to acknowledge that, for instance, temporary agency work had positive aspects, and that a total ban was pointless. In 1997, this culminated in ILO convention 181, which was widely supported. This book, which was defended successfully at Leiden University as a doctoral Ph. D. thesis, reviews the impact of the convention during the past two decades and explores whether Convention 181 still has value.