News

Unite has presented the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) with the results of a survey it believes contains "damning evidence" of the "abuse and misuse of agency and temporary workers".

It is asking the government to implement legislation, including the EU Directive on Temporary and Agency Workers, and the Temporary Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Bill. It also wants a number of other measures introduced to ensure these workers receive equal treatment.

The survey includes information from the graphics and media industries as well as manufacturing, finance and construction.

It claimed that workers at publisher HarperCollins were told that overtime opportunities had been withdrawn because it was cheaper to use temporary staff.

Permanent staff received £8 per hour compared with £6.25 an hour for agency workers. For evening and night shifts, the discrepancy was even more pronounced.

Temporary staff were subsequently told they would have to be more flexible in order to cover the out-of-hours shifts.

Unite assistant general secretary Tony Burke told printweek.com: “We see a growing use of temporary and agency workers, particularly in magazines and newspapers. We have seen evidence showing that some companies are paying temporary workers well below what is normally achieved in the printing industry.

“We intend to run a campaign to ensure that temporary workers get equal treatment.”

Unite joint general secretary Derek Simpson said: “The government’s failure to make progress on providing equal employment rights to agency and temporary workers despite a commitment in the 2004 Warwick agreement is outrageous.

“We expect the new leadership of the Labour government to right this wrong and implement the measures contained in the proposed EU Directive on Temporary and Agency Workers.”

Burke said that the countries raising the strongest objections to the EU Directive are the UK and Ireland, although the government had promised to introduce legislation to protect temporary workers’ rights in the short term.