 |
|
| CURRENT SECTION :: Jobs | UK's most visited IT Contractor Site - 250k unique visitors March 2008 |
|
 |
Proposals to give temporary agency workers pay and conditions similar to those of permanent employees should not extend to umbrella company contractors. Sounding its call on Friday, Giant group, the umbrella services provider, hinted it would be wrong if its contract employees had to take a pay cut. Giving agency temps the same basic rights, including holiday pay, as an employee from week 12 in their job would also make umbrella contractors uncompetitive. “The cost of using contractors could rise significantly if umbrella company contractors are included in the proposed legislation,” said Matthew Brown, Giant’s chief executive. “This could reduce their attractiveness to end users and undermine the flexibility of the UK workforce.” The group wants the government to ensure that a caveat in the draft of the EU directive on workers rights, that excludes umbrella users, be duplicated into the UK legislation. However the government is being pressured from unions to ditch the ‘Swedish derogation’, as the umbrella company exclusion is known, from applying under UK law. “Contractors working through umbrella companies are already employees, so if they were included in the legislation the Government would effectively be saying that employees in entirely separate organisations should be paid the same purely because they are working in close proximity. “That would be a ridiculous position,” argued Mr Brown. “Umbrella company contractors in knowledge-based industries like IT, finance or engineering are usually paid significantly more than the employees at the organisations they are seconded to, so their inclusion in this legislation would be unnecessary as well as potentially unworkable.” He called on the government to clarify its position on the UK proposals, which could become law as early as next year, because it has sent “mixed signals” on the issue of temporary agency workers’ rights. “[The government] …has been staunchly opposed to extending rights to high end contractors at European level,” Mr Brown said, “but it needs to acknowledge the ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach is not appropriate for UK legislation as well.” Giant also said that a similar caveat may be inserted to exclude limited company contractors when the government comes to framing the legislation for the UK. Jun 2, 2008 Email this article Printer friendly page Previous Page
|
|
 
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| All content © Contractor UK Limited | [Register for News Letter] | [Privacy Statement] | [Terms of Use] | [Top of Page] |