Moves to improve the lot of the U.K's 1.4 million agency workers are back on the agenda. HR Advantage Director Stuart McKellar has a brief look at what might be in store for employers who make use of staff employed through agencies.
What is a temporary agency worker?
A temporary worker is someone who has been employed by an organisation in order to do a specific job for a specified period of days, weeks or even months. Temporary workers who are directly employed by an organisation benefit from the same statutory employment rights as a permanently employed worker. Temporary workers who are employed by an organisation through a recruitment agency however (so are not directly employed by the organisation) have far fewer statutory rights than their fellow permanently employed colleagues that they work alongside.
Why should we turn our attention to these agency workers?
The European Commission has agreed to reconsider a proposed directive on temporary agency workers seeking to enhance their protection due to the reignited argument (as Labour MP Andrew Miller states) that temporary agency workers are 'subject to inferior pay and conditions and blatant exploitation'. The government suggests that the directive could be adopted in the
What are the arguments behind introducing new legislation?
The concern is that a two tier labour market is unfair to both directly employed staff and workers employed through agencies. Temporary agency workers are vulnerable to injustice and the presence of agency workers keeps down the pay and benefits of direct employees. Unions suggest that it is unfair that two employees who sit side by side and complete exactly the same duties each day receive completely different pay and benefits and also suggest that this inevitably creates stress for the temporary worker who each day becomes increasingly more hopeful that they will one day become a permanent employee. However, others claim that implementing legislation would trigger far higher administration costs for employers and thereby deter them from using temporary workers at all, inevitably consigning 'thousands of people to benefit dependency' (John Hutton, Secretary of State for Business).
What would legislation give temporary agency workers?
In a nutshell, the right to the same pay and benefits as comparable permanent employees.
What should you do as the employer?
If you currently rely on agency workers it is worth making an assessment about what the proposed changes could mean. Forewarned is forearmed, and if adjustments might be in the offing it has to be worth knowing what you might have to do sooner rather than later.
For more information or to discuss the latest on the progress of the legislation, call Stuart on 01404 42359 or e-mail
stuart@hradvantage.co.uk.
