Commenting on the agreements reached last night by the EU Employment and Social Affairs Council, European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) General Secretary, John Monks said: “The agreement on a directive on temporary agency workers was positive and shows that the European Union can legislate improvements for workers, contrary to what some business lobbyists have been arguing. But the agreement on working time is highly unsatisfactory and unacceptable to the ETUC, in respect of the new provisions on on-call work and the continuation of the UK opt-out. We will now be working with allies in the European Parliament on both these measures”.