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(1) Article 31 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union provides that every worker has the right to working conditions which respect his or her health, safety and dignity, to limitation of maximum working hours, to daily and weekly rest periods and to an annual period of paid leave.

(2) Principle No 5 of the European Pillar of Social Rights, proclaimed at Gothenburg on 17 November 2017, provides that, regardless of the type and duration of the employment relationship, workers have the right to fair and equal treatment regarding working conditions, access to social protection and training, and that the transition towards open-ended forms of employment is to be fostered; that, in accordance with legislation and collective agreements, the necessary flexibility for employers to adapt swiftly to changes in the economic context is to be ensured; that innovative forms of work that ensure quality working conditions are to be fostered, that entrepreneurship and self-employment are to be encouraged and that occupational mobility is to be facilitated; and that employment relationships that lead to precarious working conditions are to be prevented, including by prohibiting abuse of atypical contracts, and that any probationary period is to be of a reasonable duration.

(3) Principle No 7 of the European Pillar of Social Rights provides that workers have the right to be informed in writing at the start of employment about their rights and obligations resulting from the employment relationship, including any probationary period; that prior to any dismissal they are entitled to be informed of the reasons and given a reasonable period of notice; and that they have the right to access to effective and impartial dispute resolution and, in the case of unjustified dismissal, a right to redress, including adequate compensation.

(4) Since the adoption of Council Directive 91/533/EEC , labour markets have undergone far-reaching changes due to demographic developments and digitalisation leading to the creation of new forms of employment, which have enhanced innovation, job creation and labour market growth. Some new forms of employment vary significantly from traditional employment relationships with regard to predictability, creating uncertainty with regard to the applicable rights and the social protection of the workers concerned. In this evolving world of work, there is therefore an increased need for workers to be fully informed about their essential working conditions, which should occur in a timely manner and in written form to which workers have easy access. In order adequately to frame the development of new forms of employment, workers in the Union should also be provided with a number of new minimum rights aiming to promote security and predictability in employment relationships while achieving upward convergence across Member States and preserving labour market adaptability.

(5) Pursuant to Directive 91/533/EEC, the majority of workers in the Union have the right to receive written information about their working conditions. Directive 91/533/EEC does not however apply to all workers in the Union. Moreover, gaps in protection have emerged for new forms of employment created as a result of labour market developments since 1991.

(6) Minimum requirements relating to information on the essential aspects of the employment relationship and relating to working conditions that apply to every worker should therefore be established at Union level in order to guarantee all workers in the Union an adequate degree of transparency and predictability as regards their working conditions, while maintaining reasonable flexibility of non-standard employment, thus preserving its benefits to workers and employers.

(7) The Commission has undertaken a two-phase consultation with the social partners, in accordance with Article 154 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, on the improvement of the scope and effectiveness of Directive 91/533/EEC and the broadening of its objectives in order to establish new rights for workers. This did not result in an agreement among the social partners to enter into negotiations on those matters. However, as confirmed by the outcome of the open public consultations that sought the views of various stakeholders and citizens, it is important to take action at Union level in this area by modernising and adapting the current legal framework to new developments.

(8) In its case law, the Court of Justice of the European Union (Court of Justice) has established criteria for determining the status of a worker . The interpretation of the Court of Justice of those criteria should be taken into account in the implementation of this Directive. Provided that they fulfil those criteria, domestic workers, on-demand workers, intermittent workers, voucher based-workers, platform workers, trainees and apprentices could fall within the scope of this Directive. Genuinely self-employed persons should not fall within the scope of this Directive since they do not fulfil those criteria. The abuse of the status of self-employed persons, as defined in national law, either at national level or in cross-border situations, is a form of falsely declared work that is frequently associated with undeclared work. Bogus self-employment occurs when a person is declared to be self-employed while fulfilling the conditions characteristic of an employment relationship, in order to avoid certain legal or fiscal obligations. Such persons should fall within the scope of this Directive. The determination of the existence of an employment relationship should be guided by the facts relating to the actual performance of the work and not by the parties’ description of the relationship.

(9) It should be possible for Member States to provide, where justified on objective grounds, for certain provisions of this Directive not to apply to certain categories of civil servants, public emergency services, the armed forces, police authorities, judges, prosecutors, investigators or other law enforcement services, given the specific nature of the duties that they are called on to perform or of their employment conditions.

(10) The requirements laid down in this Directive with regard to the following matters should not apply to seafarers or sea fishermen, given the specificities of their employment conditions: parallel employment where incompatible with the work performed on board ships or fishing vessels, minimum predictability of work, the sending of workers to another Member State or to a third country, transition to another form of employment, and providing information on the identity of the social security institutions receiving the social contributions. For the purposes of this Directive, seafarers and sea fishermen as defined, respectively, in Council Directives 2009/13/EC and (EU) 2017/159 should be considered to be working in the Union when they work on board ships or fishing vessels registered in a Member State or flying the flag of a Member State.

(11) In view of the increasing number of workers excluded from the scope of Directive 91/533/EEC on the basis of exclusions made by Member States under Article 1 of that directive, it is necessary to replace those exclusions with a possibility for Member States not to apply the provisions of this Directive to an employment relationship with predetermined and actual working hours that amount to an average of three hours per week or less in a reference period of four consecutive weeks. The calculation of those hours should include all time actually worked for an employer, such as overtime or work supplementary to that guaranteed or anticipated in the employment contract or employment relationship. From the moment when a worker crosses that threshold, the provisions of this Directive apply to him or her, regardless of the number of working hours that the worker works subsequently or the number of working hours provided for in the employment contract.