Agency workers to receive equal rights after 12 weeks in job

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Date: 8 May 2009

by Patrick Wintour and Haroon Siddique

About 500,000 agency workers will receive the same pay and conditions as permanent staff under proposals to be published by ministers today in an effort to redeem a pledge made by government to unions.

The proposals - the subject of fraught talks between unions and the CBI last year - will be published in a consultation paper by the business department.

The rights will take effect once agency workers have spent 12 weeks in a given post, as part of the government's implementation of a EU directive. Measures will also be included to prevent employers avoiding the new laws by sacking staff after 11 weeks and then re-employing them.

The demand to take action to protect more than 1 million agency workers became a major campaign theme of Labour backbenchers last year.

The qualification period of 12 weeks' continuous work will reduce the numbers protected by the new laws. It is expected that legislation will be passed this year, but the government will have until December 2011 to bring the new laws into force.

John Cridland, the CBI's deputy-director general, said: "Although this directive has been agreed in Brussels, there are still lots of questions that remain about how it will be implemented in the UK. The example of France is a good case study for how not to do it. When changes to agency working were made there, it resulted in the number of agency jobs halving."

Pat McFadden, the employment relations minister, said: "The government is determined to ensure that people get a fair deal at work, including the agency workers who play a vital role in the UK economy."

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Contact: Rose Conroy, GMB Press Officer on 07974 251823 or Steve Pryle, GMB

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