The objective of this thesis is to study the legal rights and liabilities relating to the use of temporary staffing from the user company’s point of view in particu-lar. The focus areas include regulations that are binding on the user company, and their effects on its operations. The supervisory rights of the user company are the core concept employed throughout the dissertation. Therefore, the su-pervisory rights and the related liabilities and impacts on the parties involved in the use of temporary agency workers will be addressed. The increased popularity of temporary staffing has brought to light some difficulties with the domestic legislation, which aims to keep up with the complex situations resulting from its use. This still-developing situation made the research on this dissertation even more interesting and challenging.

At the beginning of this dissertation, the main legal entities involved in tempo-rary staffing, the nature of temporary agency work as I conceive it, and the main legal concepts employed in this dissertation are defined. Later, the rights and liabilities that the parties have in relation to each other are discussed. Finally, the results and the reliability of the thesis are considered.

This thesis is essentially a report written using various legal information sources, articles written by experts, court cases, and a small-scale interview with an expert working for a temporary work agency in Lappeenranta. The ma-terial includes two legal cases only, because the number of court verdicts relat-ing to temporary workers is very small. This poses a risk of misinterpretation in terms of the use of temporary staffing and related problem situations. During the work on this dissertation, I became clear that problems arising in connection to temporary staffing were often related to the legal position of the temporary worker and the interpretation of the complex and comprehensive laws and regulations on temporary agency work. Also, the companies that make use of temporary employees are often misinformed about the legal status of practices relating to the use of hired workers.