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The most solid confirmation yet that the UK’s temporary agency workers can expect a future free of employment rights has come from business secretary John Hutton. In a series of statements that will anger unions, Mr Hutton ruled out any legislation in the UK to put the rights of agency staff on a par with the rights of employees. Although the government will work with ministers to find a compromise in Europe, he said it won’t accept any deal that threatens to “undermine labour market flexibility.” In an interview with the Times, Mr Hutton also cast doubt that the EU directive to give agency staff extra protections will be endorsed by the UK any time soon. “We won’t accept a deal that is not in the UK’s interest,” he told the paper. “Effectively the worst outcome of all would be to penalise or somehow impose an extra charge and therefore make uneconomic agency work itself, which many companies regard as an important way of filling temporary vacancies.” Unions will say this overturns Labour’s recent pledges to them, stemming from the Warwick agreement – a package of measures promised to unions three years ago for electoral support. But in his interview, Mr Hutton was defiant: “I wasn’t party to the Warwick agreement, but what I can see recorded was that we would resolve this at the European Union level. “We agreed in principle a directive and we would try to get it sorted. We have no plans for legislation.” Unions say agency work is changing Britain for the worse, eroding the employment conditions and rights of workers only because they work on a temporary basis. But their opponents, including the REC, believe there is enough legislation to protect agency staff, and take a different view of the sector, as does Mr Hutton. He said: “In the UK… about half of agency workers go on to find full-time employment within about 12 months or so. A very substantial chunk of those are people who have been long-term benefit claimants. “Agency work is a kind of bridge between benefit and full-time employment and I am definitely not going to pull up that bridge for tens of thousands of workers”. In a separate development, the Recruitment and Employment Confederation say they have convinced the government to end the requirement for agencies to provide detailed information on assignment of less than five days. The move is expected to come into force by April next year, and is designed to cut the administrative burden on agencies, particular those specialising in interim or short-term contracts. Dec 18, 2007 Email this article Printer friendly page Previous Page
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