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10 July, 2008
Manpower, the second largest employment agency in the world, has announced the creation of a “Manpower Equaltreatment” subsidiary in Germany.
Thomas Reitz, the head of Manpower-Germany explains: “We have recently set up this new subsidiary, Manpower Equaltreatment Gmbh, in which temporary workers will be paid at the same level as the permanent workers of the companies where they work. Other conditions and benefits will also be similar.”
In doing this, Manpower has given a powerful signal to employers everywhere that the climate regarding temporary work is changing.
“We want to remain attractive as an agency, and there is a demand for these kinds of solutions,” continued Reitz.
Some collective work agreements within Germany’s major industrial enterprises like Audi, BMW, and Airbus already call for temporary and permanent staff to have similar pay and conditions.
Calls for the “equal pay for equal work” motto in all German enterprises are reinforced by a recent campaign by ICEM affiliate IGBCE and other major trade unions in Germany, which is putting pressure on companies to grant equal pay to temporary workers.
Manpower estimates that its new Manpower Equaltreatment subsidiary will employ several thousands of temp agency workers in the next few years. It will provide both high-skilled specialty staff and also less-skilled workers. “Companies prefer good agency workers,” concluded Thomas Reitz, (because) they hope they later become permanent staff, so they need a good pool of workers to choose from.