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18 November, 2007
Trade unions in the UK are campaigning behind a Private Member's Bill that would give equal treatment to the more than one million contract and agency workers employed in the UK.
Both the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and UK’s largest union, Unite, are campaigning for legislation that will give agency workers the same rights as full-time, permanent staff. Also on board are the unions GMB, Unison, Communication Workers Union, and the Union of Construction, Allied Trades, and Technicians (UCATT).
The campaign begins after draft legislation, called the Temporary Agency Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Bill, was brought by Labour MP Paul Farrelly. The unions are also pressing that a European Directive on full rights for contract and agency workers be adopted before the end of the Portuguese Presidency, which ends at year’s end.
The TUC said if negotiations on an EU Directive fail to make progress, the British government must pass domestic legislation. The Blair government broke a pledge to support a 2006 Private Member’s Bill by Farrelly, a promise that was made in the 2004 Warwick Agreement. Farrelly's bill did get the support of more than 100 Labour MPs.
"Too many employers are replacing permanent staff with badly paid, insecure agency staff,” said TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber. “Far from providing a bridge to permanent work, this runs the risk of creating a whole underclass of temporary workers.”
Barber said the simple solution is an EU Directive that would give UK agency workers new rights to equal treatment from the first day on the job. But UK’s government has led a blocking minority at the EU, which has prevented progress on a Directive that would provide equal treatment for contract and agency workers.