Time Partner Personalmanagement GmbH, a temporary work agency, employed a temporary worker with a fixed-term contract and paid him a gross hourly wage of €9.23 under the collective agreement applicable to temporary workers. 

The remuneration was lower than that granted to the user company's workers under the provisions of a collective agreement for retail workers in the Land of Bavaria (gross hourly remuneration of €13.64). 

The employee claimed additional remuneration equivalent to the difference between agency workers and similar workers employed directly by the user undertaking. After this claim was rejected at first instance and on appeal, CM brought an appeal in cassation before the Bundesarbeitsgericht (Federal Labour Court, Germany), which referred five questions to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling on the interpretation of this provision.

The CJEU ruled that lower levels of pay or working conditions provided for in a collective agreement for agency workers must be compensated by other benefits, and the unequal treatment is balanced in the collective agreement. 

Following this statement, the German Federal Labour confirmed that temporary agency workers and permanent employees could be paid differently for the same work under certain conditions, derogating the equal pay principle. In the present case, the ruling is based on the fact that the employee has, in principle, the right to continue to receive the salary during the non-assignment period. 

Therefore, the collective agreement satisfies the requirements of the EU Temporary Agency Work Directive. 

The decision recognises the role of social partners and collective bargaining in the sector and confirms that equal treatment, combined with tailor-made solutions adopted by the social partners in collective agreements, provides the balance between temporary work as a flexible working mode and the need to ensure adequate remuneration for temporary workers.