There are 1.4 million agency workers in this country. They
get a raw deal. They’re on short term contracts, often week to week. They have
no job security, no holiday entitlement, no rights to sick pay, no overtime
rates and no maternity provision. Agency work is now dominant in catering,
construction and among security guards. You know these are rubbish jobs anyway.
If agency workers are sick or pregnant, you’re sick or
pregnant on your own time. It’s hard to plan a holiday because you have to grab
the work while it’s there. You never know when the steady work will dry up.
There’s no chance of getting on the property ladder, which has become virtually
the only way to get a home. No bank will give you a mortgage if you don’t know
if you’ll be in paid work next week. And you can’t put money into a pension for
the same reason. You’re a second class citizen.
Agency hire is in the process of creating a two tier work
forces in food processing, hotels, call centres and social care. Workers standing
side by side are getting different wages depending as to whether they’re on the
cards or come from an agency. On average agency workers get 80p to the £ a
directly employed worker earns. Agency labour is being used to squeeze the conditions
accumulated by the more longstanding workers. It’s difficult to organise agency
workers. Employers don’t have to dismiss potential activists – just tell the
agency they don’t need them any more. Agency work is divisive and, since many
workers from the agency are immigrants, can inflame racism within the working
class.
The CBI has been whining that we will lose ‘flexibility’ in
the labour market if agency workers are protected. A quarter of a million jobs
are under threat. This is, of course, the same CBI who warned that it Labour
implemented a minimum wage, then a million jobs would go to the wall. They were
only a million out!
The bosses say they need flexibility in trades that go
through peaks and troughs. Fair enough, but why should temporary staff not have
the same rights as full time permanent employees? Really it’s just an excuse to
super-exploit a section of the workers.
In 2004 the government and the trade union bosses met to
sign up to what became known as the Warwick agreement. This was the deal: the
unions would back Labour in the forthcoming election. In return New Labour
would introduce legislation giving a fair crack of the whip to agency workers
and temps at work and a wad of other measures to benefit working class people.
The government had for years opposed an EU Directive providing equal rights.
Now they would mend their ways. The promise was even to be enshrined in the
2005 election manifesto.
The unions carried out their side of the deal. New Labour
ratted. They continue to fight within the counsels of the EU against rights for
temporary and agency workers. They deliberately ‘talked out’ a private member’s
bill off the floor of the House of Commons last year. Andrew Miller’s private
member’s bill is currently going through Parliament. Make sure your local
Labour MP is supporting it. Labour is currently trying to sweet talk their
opposition into waiting a little longer. They have a proven track record of
lying on this one. Don’t let New Labour off the hook. Let’s have equal rights
at work for all agency and temporary workers.
