What an Indian worker should check in a European employment contract

Putting the conditions of work in writing is a legal duty of the employer across the European Union. Article 5 of Directive (EU) 2019/1152 requires the core terms to be given between the first working day and the seventh calendar day, and the rest within one month. Article 7 requires a worker being sent abroad to receive that information before departure.

Which means the paper shown to you in India is not a courtesy. It is the document a labour inspector and a court in the destination country will both rely on later. So the check belongs before signature rather than after, because a single permit is normally tied to one named employer and changing jobs is not an administrative detail. That structure is set out in the single permit explained.

What the contract has to contain

Article 4 of Directive 2019/1152 lists what the employer must state in writing: the identity of both parties, the place of work, the job title and description, the start date, the end date where the term is fixed, the terms of any probationary period, training entitlement, paid leave, the procedure for termination, the details of remuneration, the arrangement of working time, and the social security institution. For seasonal work, Article 6 of Directive 2014/36/EU makes the same demand, requiring a contract or binding job offer stating the place, the type of work, the duration, the remuneration, the hours and the leave.

The Article 7 line is the most useful one. A worker being sent abroad must also be told the country or countries of work, how long the work lasts, the currency the pay will be made in, the benefits attached, and the conditions of repatriation. If that information arrives after the flight is booked, the process is already outside the rule.

The three places a contract goes quiet

First, gross against net. The contract usually states a gross monthly figure, and in India the same figure gets presented as what lands in the hand. After social security and income tax the difference is large, so have it written down which of the two the number is.

Second, accommodation and its rent. Article 20 of Directive 2014/36/EU is explicit for seasonal work: rent for accommodation arranged by the employer may not be excessive compared with net remuneration, may not be automatically deducted from the wage, and the worker must be given a written rental contract. If the rent figure is absent from the contract, it will be fixed later, and the bargaining position at that moment will not be yours.

Third, overtime and hours. The arrangement of working time sits in the Article 4 list, and in practice it is the line most often left blank.

The failure that shows up three months in

A concrete case. A worker signs an English translation that states 1,400 euro. On arrival the local language contract appears, the same 1,400 euro turns out to be gross, 250 euro of accommodation is deducted from pay, and probation runs for six months. Three months later the volume of work drops, the worker complains, and is told that he signed. He is both right and wrong, because the document he signed was not the document the procedure was running on.

The defence fits in one sentence: ask for a copy in both languages, and make sure the figures you intend to remember are identical in both. The reasons files are refused are set out in work permit refusal failure modes, and what an agent may lawfully charge is in the recruitment service charge. How the chain is built on the employer side is described on the employers page.