Equal rights for agency staff after 12 weeks
21 - 5 - 2008The Government has agreed with unions and the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) that agency workers will be given the same employment rights as permanent staff after 12 weeks.
Under the proposals agency workers will be given equal pay and holiday entitlements after 12 weeks in a job. The agreement will not however, cover sick pay or pension rights.
The CBI and Trade Union Congress (TUC) have reached agreement on how fairer treatment for agency workers in the UK should be promoted, while not removing the important flexibility that agency work can offer both to employers and workers. The following points have been agreed:
- after 12 weeks in a given job there will be an entitlement to equal treatment;
- equal treatment will be defined to mean at least the basic working and employment conditions that would apply to the workers concerned if they had been recruited directly by that undertaking to occupy the same job.
- the Government will consult the social partners (trade unions and employers or their representative organisations) regarding the implementation of the Directive.
It is hoped that this deal will end a long-running row between unions and the Government over rights for agency workers.
Is this a fair deal?
John Hutton, the Business Secretary has announced that: “This is the right deal for Britain. Today’s agreement achieves our twin objectives of flexibility for British employers and fairness for workers. It will give people a fair deal at work without putting their jobs at risk or cutting off a valuable route into employment.”
The TUC said that the issue had been ‘been crying out for attention for too long.’
Not everyone however is welcoming these proposals and some believe that this agreement threatens to burden business at a time when it is feeling the strain of the economic slowdown.
Tina Sommer, of the Federation of Small Businesses said: ‘Part of the reason for the UK’s relative economic success in the past decade has been the flexibility of its workforce. This deal could put all that at risk at the worst possible time.’
For more information contact Victoria Wright on 020 8290 0440 or email: victoria.wright@thackraywilliams.com
or visit the following links:
http://www.wired-gov.net/wg/wg-news-1.nsf/lfi/161038http://www.news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7410127.stm