Gordon Brown has committed to giving agency workers stronger employment rights by promising them the same pay and holidays as permanent staff.
The Prime Minister’s pledge marks a potentially substantial change in the government’s stance on how temporary agency staff should be treated by employers.
In December, the business secretary John Hutton used an interview with the Times to rule out any legislation in the UK that would effectively turn temps into employees.
But outlining his draft legislative programme last week, Mr Brown said he would bring forward proposals to give temps “appropriate protections” and “fair treatment,” expected from the sixth month of work.
His words were welcomed by unions like the TUC, which said they proved Mr Brown recognised that agency workers get a “raw deal” compared to their directly employed counterparts.
However business groups fear that the new regulations could make agency workers a much less flexible and instant staffing option, particularly for holiday or maternity cover.
Meanwhile recruitment firm Hudson has warned that giving employee-style rights to IT temps would pressure their pay downwards, as organisations seek to offset the higher costs of such workers.
The prospect of temporary agency workers getting the same rights as employees has also been warned against by the CBI, the PCG, ATSCo and the REC, the recruitment watchdog.
Tom Hadley, a director at the REC, said: “Any future regulation must be responsive to the fast moving, dynamic, environment of recruitment agencies.
“Agencies put over a million people into work everyday, with over 80% of agency workers being satisfied with their placements. The new regulation must focus on abuse and not limit the job opportunities that temping brings millions of workers every year.”
Despite protestations from business, unions say equal treatment of workplace staff is vital, as agency workers are being used to “undermine the terms, conditions and securities of existing permanent workforces.”
Mr Brown has now signalled he is on their side. He told MPs: “It is not fair that even after months in the job, agency workers can currently be paid less than the staff they work alongside.”
Disclosures obtained by the Financial Times add that a deal between unions and business is on the verge of being brokered.
“We’re quite close to an agreement,” a senior Whitehall insider told the paper.
“Its possible there will be something next week or so. Our focus is on getting agreement on what we can achieve in the UK… [but] there are also discussions taking place in Europe.”
The paper added that the legislation proposed by Mr Brown for the fair treatment of agency staff in the UK would be used to enact any European directive, not to introduce separate domestic rights.
May 19, 2008
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