The Recruitment and Employment Confederation, the industry body for employment agencies was today seeking urgent clarification from the UK Government on its position with regards the proposed Agency Workers Directive.
At Labourís National Policy Forum in Warwick this weekend, it was suggested that the Government would now support the proposed Agency Workers Directive, currently being debated in Brussels.
Whilst industry has been supportive of much of the content of the Directive too, it believes that measures contained within the current draft would have a hugely negative impact on the economy and on the employment opportunities for the 1 million temps registered to work in the UK on any given day. Specifically, industry is concerned about how equal pay between temps and permanent workers would work in practice and at what point during a temporary workers job placement, equal rights would kick in.
Temporary workers already have significant rights including access to statutory sick pay, holiday entitlement, and minimum wage and are covered by health & safety and other employment rights, such as anti-discrimination legislation. A range of new measures providing additional protection for temporary workers came into force in April this year under the Employment Agency Act regulations. However, providing temporary workers with the same pay and benefits as permanent staff (as proposed in the European Directive) would result in huge administrative difficulties for companies and would make using temporary workers much less attractive. The only solution for the Directive to be workable is to include a substantial time period after which equal treatment provisions apply.
Until now, the UK Government has been supportive of industryís position. If, however, the Government has decided to shift its position, and support the current version of the draft directive, industry believes the Government would have sold British competitiveness down the river, and prevented the opportunity for thousands of workers to get on the job ladder.
Commenting on this weekendís developments, Gareth Osborne, Managing Director of the REC said:
ìThe REC supports many aspects of the Agency Workers Directive, particularly those that will open up the employment markets in some European countries. However if the UK Government accepts the Directive in its current form, it will be reneging on a series of pledges it has made to business and seriously damage the productivity of the UK economy and make it more difficult for many workers to get a foot on the first rung of the employment ladder.î
Recruitment industry presses DTI for answers on agency workers directive
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