Tories vow to delay agency worker law

A David Cameron-led government would delay the UK's adoption of an EU directive to give temporary agency workers 'employee-style' rights from the 12th week of work.



In a pledge to woo enterprise, Jonathan Djanogly, the shadow business minister, said the EU Agency Workers Directive should be postponed as a matter of necessity.



"The directive will cost businesses some £40billion over the next 10 years and wipe out tens of thousands of jobs," the Conservative MP wrote on the party's blog.



"Rushing this through may keep the unions happy, but in the current recession we need to be creating jobs not destroying them."



The Tory promise to delay the directive, which the UK must adopt by 2011, opposes Gordon Brown's view that the UK should enshrine it in "the coming few months."



Clearly preferring the prime minister's stance, unions said the Conservative's announcement, first made at its party conference last week, was "disappointing".



"At a time of recession, vulnerable workers are even more likely to be exploited by unscrupulous employers," said Brendan Barber, the general secretary of the Trade Unions Congress.



"There is a danger that this issue gets caught up in Conservative Party divisions about Europe, and the real abuse suffered by agency workers gets completely forgotten."



But in a direct riposte to the TUC, the Association of Recruitment Consultancies said evidence of employers taking advantage of temporary agency workers was scant.



Adrian Marlowe, ARC chairman said: "The unions should get real. The constant call for more rights for 'exploited' agency workers would better stand up if some real compelling evidence of widespread current exploitation could be established.



"In the absence of that evidence, a call for an immediate implementation of the directive leaves one wondering who the unions are representing, particularly if the result is at the expense of loss of employment by many others."



The association is on the long list of private sector groups calling for policymakers to use the three-year window before having to legislate to frame the directive appropriately.



They fear that forcing end-users to give full-time rights to temporary agency workers would impose a massive cost, while making freelancers who use agencies financially prohibitive.



The Association of Professional Staffing Companies, the CBI, and the PCG, say that, as a result, professional temps should be outside the scope of the directive when ministers come to frame it.



The groups are likely to endorse Mr Djanogly's announcement. "Britain employs more agency workers than any other European country and so it will be hit hardest by the directive," he said.



"We need to cut out the gold plating of European directives, repatriate employment law from Brussels to the UK, and introduce more flexibility into the workplace".