The main purpose of this PhD thesis is to answer the question of whether trainees should
belong within the personal scope of labour law or are there any other legal
possibilities to avoid their precariousness in the labour market. In the
current research dogmatic and comparative legal analyse is used. The legal
acts, provisions of collective agreements, relevant court and labour court
practice, and vocational and higher education institutions’ regulations
concerning traineeships are analysed. The regulation of the European Union
(EU), International Labour Organization and different countries, including
France, Estonia, Finland, Slovenia and the United States of America is
analysed. 

It is argued that trainees should belong within the scope of labour law regardless of
the special features of traineeships. Trainees perform subordinate work to the
employer and therefore, fulfil the most important criterion of an employment
relationship. The implicit and explicit exemption of trainees from the scope of
labour law in practice is the result of improper interpretation of labour law.
The fundamental tests determining the scope of labour law do not exclude
trainees from the category of ‘employees’. Different interpretation leads to
the precariousness of trainees in the labour market: neither the traineeship
agreement nor the substantial and private international law rules of the EU in
cross-border cases provide trainees comparable protection as labour law.

Trainees working in the framework of a traineeship agreement are exposed to
precariousness due to the special features of the agreement as well as their
limited labour rights.
Their right of association and collective bargaining
as well as their most important individual rights are limited. A trainee that
is not regarded as an ‘employee’ often has no right to compensation, her/his
health and safety is protected only if the traineeship forms part of
educational curriculum, and working time is limited if the trainee receives
compensation.
The substantial law rules of the EU are unable to
independently protect the labour rights of (cross-border) trainees. The protection of trainees
through private international law rules of the EU concerns only cross-border
cases, can distort national labour law and is very complicated because of the
lack of consensus as regards the method of the interpretation of the term
‘individual employment contract’.

Even in the existence of sufficiently protective alternative regulation, trainees
should, according to the labour law in force be classified as ‘employees’. This
would guarantee them all labour rights and it would be difficult to explain why
in the case of conflict between the provisions of labour law and another field
of law (for example educational law) the latter one should be applied. The
specific characteristics of traineeships could be taken into account by
regulating these as special temporary employment contracts similar to
apprenticeships.

Since in the case of traineeships the fulfilment of subordination criterion is not problematic,
the theoretical suggestions to broaden the scope of labour law do not
contribute to the better protection of trainees in a manner that would justify
the reconstruction of the basics of labour law. These alternatives are also too
abstract to be able to replace the existing system of determining the scope of
labour law.