Your questions answered - Week Six - Agency Workers

20.07.10 -

The unfair treatment of agency workers causes many problems, not just for the agency workers themselves, but also for their directly employed colleagues. How should the Agency Workers Directive be implemented and enforced in order to put a stop to the exploitation of agency workers and the undercutting of permanent staff, and what other measures should be put in place? Why do you think progress was not made to sign up to and implement the Agency Workers Directive sooner under Labour, given supporting it was part of the Warwick Agreement of 2004?

Diane Abbott:

I think it was major error that the Labour government did not sign up to the Agency Workers Directive sooner.

It would have left another marvellous legacy for Labour had we begun implementing the directive in 2004.

But we did manage to get the directive through Parliament ahead of the last election, thanks to Unions who have lobbied for the support of the directive for a long time. It is down to them that we have finally been able to get it passed into law.

I voted in favour of the Agency Workers Regulations 2010, which will secure equal pay, holiday and terms for working time between vulnerable agency workers and their permanent staff counterparts after 12 weeks in the job. This will be implemented in the UK at the latest by December 2011.

However, now we are in opposition, we need to ensure the directive goes ahead as we intended.

The Tories vigorously opposed the directive from the start so we must ensure that they implement the directive as we intended. The worrying response from Ed Davey to a question from Lisa Nandy should make us raise our political antennae and be aware that this coalition could be willing to water down the proposals.

Agency workers are particularly at risk during recession and this directive is needed protect their interests. Currently they lack almost all of the rights guaranteed for normal workers from the Employment Rights Act 1996, which is just wrong.

These new regulations will see improvements for millions of workers across the UK.

For the Coalition to go back on the directive would be nothing short of a scandal.

I for one will do my best to make sure this does not happen.

Ed Balls:

While Labour put the minimum wage and other advances into law, we were far too slow to legislate for equal treatment for agency staff. The TUC's Vulnerable Workers project exposed heart-rending cases. And it was not enough to implement the posted workers directive when the floor was simply the minimum wage rather than the proper rate for the job.

Why did it happen? Because there was a school of thought in some parts of government that this would appease business. The election showed that this was futile, especially when business leaders signed a letter backing the Tories against the national insurance rise.

I support immigration and migration, which has made an immense contribution to our economy and the diversity and richness of our society. I’ve said this in front of a baying crowd of BNP supporters in my constituency and will do so again. But I don’t believe in free migration, I believe in fair migration – fair to migrant workers and to working people.

The scale and pace of migration from Eastern Europe in the second half of the last decade did have an affect on our communities, on housing, and on the wages and terms and conditions of many workers. Not acting quickly on implementing the agency and posted workers directives exacerbated that. So we should have a proper set of guarantees to stop exploitation of migrant workers and prevent unfair under-cutting.

I also support a Living Wage and was the first and only Cabinet Minister to implement it within my Department for all staff and contracted staff. But the law can’t do it all. In future unions must have the chance to organise and attract all types of worker to eradicate injustices.

Andy Burnham:

My dad was a telecomms engineer and, during the later part of his working life, he was an agency worker. That experience showed me first hand how precarious that sort of contract work can be. I have also seen the sometimes knife-edge existence that some of the families in my constituency face because of short-term contracts and the inability to access the sort of banking services the rest of us take for granted. That is why I have spoken up for agency workers during this leadership campaign.

Quite simply, the coalition's hesitation over the Directive in response to the 'the different points of view expressed by the business community' is an insult to temporary and agency workers, as well as anyone who wants Britain to be an economic and employment exemplar in the future.

I saw the Directive as a vital part of efforts to upgrade our laws for the current and future workforce, and I have already called for all job vacancies to be openly advertised, for instance. I regret that the Directive did not come into force without exemptions during Labour's last term, and we should learn from that and reform our policy-making processes accordingly. That is why I want to strengthen the trade union link, so that those mistakes are never made again and that we can truly be a Labour movement.

David Miliband:

I strongly support the Agency Workers Directive, to ensure people receive the employment rights they are due and to prevent the exploitation of vulnerable workers. This is a basic issue of fairness at work. It required negotiation between government and the social partners both here in Britain and at a European level. In retrospect, it took too long to achieve, but it was an agreement that would never have been achieved under a Tory government; hostile to both employment rights and to European cooperation.

It’s now vital that we get implementation of the Directive right. Workers should not be denied a fair wage, holiday entitlement and access to parental leave just because they are not permanently contracted with their employer. That’s why I support the TUC’s efforts to ensure the regulations prevent unscrupulous employers and agencies from avoiding the new rights – such as by shifting agency workers between jobs within the same workplace or using bogus self-employment to avoid equal treatment. Where they believe these rights are being denied, employees and trade unions should have recourse to proper dispute resolution mechanisms, including an employment tribunal if necessary.

Ed Miliband:

Fairness and dignity in work is at the heart of my vision for a more equal and stronger Britain. I'm proud of what Labour achieved in Government. But we have to realise we did too little to improve working conditions for those who work the hardest. Too many are stuck in low wage, long hours jobs. We didn't do enough to create routes to better work and a better life. And we need to do more to tackle the gap between rich and poor. That's why I am campaigning for a living wage and a high pay commission for both the public and private sector.

There are more than a million agency workers in the UK and the Agency Workers Directive is vital to ensuring their employment rights are protected and also that agency workers can't be used to undercut permanent staff.

It's a fundamental Labour belief that work should pay and those who work hard should be properly rewarded. That's why it was so important for us to implement the directive quickly. It took far too long to us to do so. I have spoken before about how some of our mistakes in Government might have been avoided if we had listened more to party and union members, and the Agency Workers Directive is a good example of this.

Now I fear the Coalition are rowing back from this commitment and I've written David Cameron in the last couple of weeks to challenge him on his plans. I will fight to protect these regulations and take-on those who are trying to undermine them.