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11 February, 2008
The British labour movement came together last week to push a Private Member’s Bill into committee stage of the House of Commons. That bill, authored by Labour MP Andrew Miller, would give labour agency workers the same rights and benefits as full-time, permanent workers.
On 6 February, labour unions, led by the Trades Union Congress (TUC), held a mass day of lobby at Westminster, spotlighting a second hearing of Miller’s bill that saw trade unions produce gruesome testimonies of abuse by agency workers themselves. British work sectors – from service to foods to industrial – have been flooded by labour agency firms offering low-wage, no-strings-attached workers to employers.
Last week’s turnout moved the Private Member’s Bill to a House hearing, which will occur on 22 February. The day of lobby also came six days after the Labour Party’s Executive Committee voted to endorse it, an action that Labour Party Prime Minister Gordon Brown cannot ignore without serious fall-out from trade unions.
“The Labour Party committed to introduce UK legislation to protect agency workers before the last election,” said Chairman Tony Dubbins of the Trade Unions for Labour Organisation, “and now we and 1.4 million agency workers in the UK” have been promised it again. “Now we need the government to act on that promise by backing Andrew Miller’s bill.”
But that may not come easy, just like it didn’t during the Blair government, despite a Labour Party commitment for equal rights to all workers contained in the 2004 Warwick Agreement. British business groups are opposing the measure, claiming it would hold back achieving flexible labour markets, and often, serve as a means for gaining a full-time job.
TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said, “Far from providing a bridge to permanent work, this runs the risk of creating a whole underclass of temporary workers who cannot get permanent work. Many employers are using agencies to replace secure jobs with reasonable terms and conditions with insecure, badly paid agency staff.”
The TUC points out that employer’ interests will advance when temporary workers gain equal workplace rights, at the same time as receiving fair pay and social benefits. The union federation said there is a disturbing lack of awareness among employers on how maximizing experience and skills of workers out of labour agencies can benefit their enterprises.
Besides Barber, the day of lobby also featured Tony Woodley, Joint General Secretary of Unite, and Bill Hayes, General Secretary of the Communications Workers’ Union. Woodley called passage of the agency worker bill a “defining moment” for the British government “because people are looking for equal treatment.”
In Ireland, trade unions are pressuring their government to stop acting as a barrier to a European Directive for equal treatment for contract and agency workers. Blair Horan, representing the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, said trade unions will withhold affirmative support to the Irish government for passage of the Lisbon Treaty referendum until the government reverses its agency-worker stand in Brussels. Ireland, Germany, Poland, and the UK have blocked a European Directive on Agency Workers.