Body leasing (AUG) - What does equal treatment mean?

The equal treatment principle is one of the basic requirements in the field of temporary employment. Only the existance of a union contract can allow a different handling.

In Germany, temporary employment is strictly regulated.

One of the limitations, is that employees going on AÜG-contracts must be provided with the same working and payment conditions as those employees who work directly for the client (a company they are being provided to). This is called the equal treatment principle.

When talking about conditions, this does not only mean the salary, but also other employment conditions such as holidays, estra payments like a 13th salary, bonuses or cars.

As a consequence, the client company (the company the employees are rented out to) has to diclose its own working conditions for those employees who are equivalent to the employees in question. 

However, within certain limits, some exceptions are possible:

For a period of 9 months, salary and working conditions can be defined by referring to one of the German union contracts for temporary employment.

Referring to means that the body lease provider (employer) and his employee define within their employment contract, that the employment conditions shall follow the regulation in the relevant union contract.

After the period of 9 months, the equal treatment principle applies again.

Still, under certain conditions, an additional extension is possible:

Should the union contract not only define a certain salary, but should it also containg salary to-ups for the specifi working field (which needs to be checked on a case to case basis), then the above period can be extended to 15 months.

Anyway, once these periods are over, then the salary and the working conditions must be equal to those conditions, that are offered by the client to its own employees.

The maximum period and employee can be least out to a client is 18 months.