UK government must move on pledge to protect agency workers

The UK government should use today’s meeting of the EU Council of Employment Ministers to demonstrate its commitment to reach agreement on laws to protect temporary agency workers by leading the way on serious negotiations, says the TUC.

The UK government has already pledged that it will work towards an agreement with other member states on the EU Temporary Agency Workers Directive but there is a danger that the talks will stall again.

Brendan Barber, TUC General Secretary, said:

While this law is stuck in the EU log-jam around 700,000 UK agency workers are being denied equal pay and basic rights. And agency work is becoming a less popular option as workers realise they are far better protected and paid in fixed-term, part-time, or full-time permanent, employment.

The UK economy needs the attractive, productive and rewarding agency work that the Directive will deliver. An injection of impetus from the UK government is crucial.

Why we need the directive
Temporary agency workers are typically amongst the most vulnerable UK workers, often found in the lower paid, low-skilled jobs, particularly in the catering, call center and care sectors. The agency workforce is also significantly younger than the average.

Compared to people in permanent employment, agency workers currently lose out in terms of pay, holidays, entitlement to family-friendly rights such as maternity, paternity leave and parental leave, and are often excluded from training and other career development opportunities.

What the Directive will do
The Directive would give UK agency workers the right to equal treatment with permanently employed colleagues on issues including pay, working time and holidays, maternity rights and protection against discrimination.

Qualifying period
Employer groups are arguing that an agency worker should not qualify for the rights under the Directive until they have been in the same assignment for twelve months. The UK government is currently still arguing for a six month qualifying period. The TUC believes agency workers should have equal pay and basic rights from their first day in the job.

Official statistics (Labour Force Survey, Spring 2004) show that 74% of all UK agency workers would lose out on rights to equal treatment if a 12 month qualifying period was introduced, whilst 53% would lose out under a six month qualifying period. Also, employers are likely to exploit any qualifying period by using short term contracts to avoid the new rights, which would mean most agency workers would never benefit from new rights.

Agency working fact-file
Fact: Only 28% of agency workers positively choose agency work over a permanent job and around 40% are temping because they could not find a permanent job (LFS 2004).

Fact: Improving the quality of agency temping could make it a more popular option. The number of part-time workers in the UK has grown by 7% since part-time workers won equal treatment rights in 2002.

Fact: Despite strong employment growth, all forms of temporary work have fallen in absolute terms and as a share of the workforce since peaking in1998 (7.9%) to 6.5% in 2002 and 6% in 2004.

Fact: Since 2002 when equal treatment rights were introduced for employees on fixed term contracts, the number the agency workers has fallen by 14% whilst the number of staff on fixed term contracts has only fallen by 8%.