TUC Report does not make the case for further regulation, says REC

The Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) ñ the representative body for the UK recruitment industry ñ has dismissed Trade Union calls for more regulation on temporary work and has questioned the robustness of the report published today.

Commenting on the TUC ëAgency Workers ñ Counting the Cost of Flexibilityí report, REC Chief Executive Marcia Roberts says:

ìWe agree with the TUCís statement that employment agencies play a key role in supplying temporary staff that instances where workers are exploited by unscrupulous employers or rogue gangmasters must be addressed. However, regulations are already in place to address the examples of bad practice cited in the report ñ in particular with regards to exploitation of migrant workers. The priority should be to focus on effective enforcement of current regulations and the DTI are already taking forward a specific campaign to protect vulnerable workers which the REC fully supportsî.

The TUC report has been timed to coincide with the House of Commons debate on Agency Work which is due to take place on Friday. The aim of the Private Members Bill is to impose equal treatment provisions (from day one of an assignment) between temporary workers and permanent employees. Commenting on the possible implications of such provisions, Marcia Roberts says:

ìIt is crucial to ensure that the basic employment rights which protect temporary workers are enforced. It is because such protections already exist in the UK that temporary work is so popular, covering between 4 and 5% of the overall working population. However, the concern is that equal treatment provisions would be extremely difficult to implement in practice and could create a substantial amount of additional bureaucracy. This is turn could limit the job opportunities that temporary and contract work providesî.

Commenting on the report itself, the REC Director of Research Roger Tweedy says:

ìThe TUC Report is a strange hotchpotch of sources with no new data. Most of the negative evidence seems to be anecdotal and based on one-off case studies. It is difficult to see how this report can be used to justify imposing wide-ranging new legislation on the whole sectorî.