My own personal blog. UNISON NEC member for Housing Associations & Charities, HA Convenor, London Regional Council Officer & Chair of its Labour Link Committee.
Newham Cllr for West Ham Ward, Vice Chair of Local Authority Pension Fund Forum, Pension trustee, Housing & Safety Practitioner.
Centre left and proud member of Labour movement family. Strictly no trolls please.
Promoted by Luke Place on behalf of J.Gray, Newham Labour Group, St Luke’s Community Centre, E16 1HS.
Are you one of the 1 in 10 people in insecure work - like a zero hours contract or working through an agency?
If so, we want to hear from you!
Many people now have jobs that give them little or no security. This may because you rely on an agency to provide you with work – and there’s no guarantee that they can find you work.
You may have a job where you have no guarantee of how many hours’ work you will have from one week to the next or maybe on a zero hours contract.
Or your employer might tell you you’re self-employed, but still want to control the hours you work and the jobs you take – without providing you with the minimum wage or sick pay.
We want to hear from people who have jobs like these. Please tell us about your experiences at work. It can be completely anonymous if you prefer. This will help us campaign for decent jobs for everyone.
First item of business at Congress today (Wednesday) was to send a message of support to members of the Bakers union (BFAWU) out on strike at Hovis (Premier Foods) Wigan.
The BFAWU call for support at their picket lines and for a boycott of Hovis Products during the dispute. See union press release.
"The issue of zero-hour contracts is one that is taking up a considerable amount of column space in both local and national newspapers at the moment. The Bakers’, Food and Allied Workers Union highlighted this exploitation back in 2011 during a dispute with a well known supplier of cake products. Unfortunately, we remained a lone voice. With honourable exceptions, the media, local politicians and the general public alike decided to remain impassive and apathetic. Since then, the use of zero-hour contracts has reached almost epidemic proportions and it has been estimated that over a million UK workers are now employed on these contracts.
Sadly, it was only a matter of time before other organisations decided to jump on this particular bandwagon. Staff at the Hovis (Premier Foods) bakery in Wigan had already reduced their hours and subsequently, their pay in a bid to reduce the need for redundancies. However, after long and protracted discussions with the Union, the company decided to proceed with job losses. However, once the redundancies had been made, the company decided to renege on long standing recognition agreements and make up the ensuing staff shortfall with agency labour, with many being utilised on an ‘as and when’ basis, in other words; zero-hour contracts.
Since then, we have attempted to resolve this situation with the company, but to no avail. Ultimately, the Union took the painful decision to ballot its members at the Wigan site in order to seek a mandate for industrial action. The result was overwhelmingly in favour of strike action against the company on the following dates:
6.00am on August 28th 2013 until 6.00am on September 4th 2013
6.00am on September 11th 2013 until 6.00am on September 18th 2013
6.00am on September 25th 2013 until 6.00am on October 2nd 2013
Further branch meetings will be held to extend the action unless the company comes to a satisfactory agreement with the Union on the withdrawal of agency labour from the site.
BFAWU members at Hovis, Wigan have not taken this decision lightly. They have no desire to lose pay. However, they see the current situation as unacceptable and are determined not to allow the company to set precedents, undermine current terms and conditions, create a two tier workforce and leave a poor legacy for subsequent generations of people who may be employed at Hovis in the future.
We urge the company to re-enter negotiations with the Union and find a way to resolve this dispute fairly, amicably and in a way that reflects the strength of feeling among the workforce".
"Inside Housing" published on Friday my letter protesting at the outrageous comments in my view by their "resident employment expert" Helen Giles. Click on link to see the original article and double click on the caption to bring up my response.
I find her views on agency workers (and many other employment issues) as completely unacceptable.
But what is worse, is that she apparently publishes everything with
the full approval of the organisation that employs her?
If this is so then how on earth does a longstanding housing charity allow itself to be aliened with the views of what most people would think to be completely vile and reactionary right wing Conservative Party views?
I subscribe to a free daily e-newsletter from “Housing News” and today (here) I saw a headline “VAT CHANGES THREATENS HOUSING JOBS”. I quickly clicked on the story and come across this complete and utter dross of a story.
“The removal of a VAT concession on the wages of temporary housing staff will cost social housing organisations £135m and lead to major job losses at a time when the sector can least afford it, the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) and Procurement for Housing (PfH) have warned.
The Treasury is due to remove the tax concession granted in 1998 to recruitment agencies supplying temporary workers to the social housing, charity, social care and health sectors.
The measure, which will take effect next April, means that social landlords will pay VAT on full invoice amounts for temps, rather than just agency commission, a tax that many housing organisations can’t reclaim.
In a meeting with HMRC and the Treasury earlier this month, the REC and PfH again called on Government to reconsider removing the tax concession, explaining that the rapidly worsening economic outlook is now really starting to bite in the jobs market with temporary appointments dropping swiftly. PfH surveyed its member housing organisations to measure the impact of imposing VAT on the wages of temporary workers.
Over 80 per cent of respondents confirmed that they could not reclaim the tax on all interim staff as they are not VAT registered. Other social landlords reported that they have subsidiaries with charitable status, meaning they are zero rated for VAT purposes, so some temporary workers are tax-exempt and others are not.
The survey revealed that each housing association and ALMO estimated they would have to pay an additional £108,000 per year, a cost of more than £70m to PfH’s 650 members alone. The REC estimates that the overall cost, across all sectors, will be £400m....
Do I live in a parallel universe from REC/PfC? This long overdue measure will not “threaten” any real Housing jobs. Instead it will help stop the exploitation of agency workers in the Housing and voluntary sector. This will encourage organisations to employ permanent staff and long term temporary staff on proper terms and conditions. It should not cost a bean more; in fact it may well save money since employers will not have to pay massive agency fees.
I am absolutely amazed that I did not know that this pretty disgraceful “concession” was in force in the first place! Why on earth was it ever granted? One thing is clear is that we must all try and do whatever we can to support the phasing out of this "con" next April.
There is an important role for short term agency working due to sickness cover or special “one off” events even though I think many large organisations could run their own “in-house” temporary work banks.
Many agency workers themselves wrongly believe they are “better off” working as temps. When you sit down with them and work things out they realise that this is wrong. A tiny minority of agency staff in high demand jobs may arguably be better off but they are definitely the exception that proves the rule.
Thankfully the Government has recently agreed to partial “parity” for temps in the future. But agency workers will still (probably – the details are still to be decided) lose out with regard to pensions and sick pay.
Exploitation of agency workers, who nearly always get paid less, who have only the statutory minimum sickness, pension and holiday provision and practically no employment protection against bullying and unfair treatment is pure and simple a national disgrace. It is a stain on our society.
By co-incidence last night I was having a bit of a rant about an attempt to promote agency working amongst social housing workers. Today, it was announced that a deal with the TUC, CBI and government has been made over “fairness” for agency workers! I think that this is a result for the TUC and affiliated Labour Party trade unions.
It’s very good news, not brilliant (no parity over pensions and sick pay) however, this should improve the terms and conditions for hundreds of thousands of workers. Locally in the East End of London I am aware of a number of long term agency workers who will be lifted out of minimum wage rates. UNISON Labour Link used this information to lobby the government.
It should also encourage permanent contracts for vulnerable workers since it will make increase agency fees.
The TUC and Dave Prentis think it is a move in the right direction. The CBI have obviously been pushed into the deal calling it the “least worse option” while the Federation of Small businesses call it “Disastrous”. No surprise there.
I do not see this measure surviving any future Tory government. Some “clear red water” to build upon for the General Election?
On the train this morning to the UNISON London International Committee, I read a feature in “Inside Housing” (I can’t find an to the article on the site) 9 May 2008 by a Recruitment consultant on the attractions of working as a “professional social housing contractor” e.g. agency temp.
The title of the article was “Leap of faith”. This really rattled my cage.
While the consultant did point out that “temping” could be risky if you cannot find any suitable assignments, it completely failed to point out all the other, arguable more serious problems with casual employment compared to permanent work.
For example there was no mention at all of the risk if you became sick or had an accident. Most agencies only pay statutory sick pay (SSP). This will pay you the grand sum of £74.40 per week if you have paid sufficient national insurance contributions (and you get nothing for the first 3 days of each claim). While most permanent jobs in social housing will pay at least 3-6 months full pay if you are sick.
There was also no mention that you will only get statutory holiday leave (20 days per year) and even now you will not get paid full leave for all bank holidays. Many organisations will give much longer annual leave especially with long service.
Company pensions, life assurance and PHI/disability protection was also ignored. In organisations that offer a company pension, up to 10-15% of your salary could be additionally paid into a pension for you.
Also, one of the hardest things for me to deal with as a trade union steward, is with members who become disabled or the families of those who have died in service who were not also members of a company pension scheme. Think about how awful this is.
There are huge number of other problems with "casualisation", not least the almost complete and utter lack of any employment protection for agency workers. Thankfully, the government is now making noises about extending “fairness” to agency workers (better late than never but I would not hold your breath). Agency workers are also rarely if ever recruited via equality proofed mechanisms.
I simply don’t believe that for the vast of agency workers they are “better off” than working for a permanent employer who pays company benefits. I also think that organisations who employ agency staff rather than actively recruit permanent staff also suffer, not least because they have to pay VAT on those staff and also the agency costs and profits.
Finally, I recognise that there is a role for agency workers to cover short term sickness or special one off tasks, however, for the vast majority of the social housing workforce to be a contractor rather than a permanent employee, it is not so much a “Leap of faith” as for many a “Leap into the Abyss”.
Picture of East London “Professional Docker contractors” queuing for the chance to work.
Trade union activists in an East End local authority invited me to interview permanent and agency employees about their comparative terms and conditions.
I have sent this information to UNISON Labour Link, which I hope they can use in their lobbying of the Government over support for the Temporary and Agency Workers (Equal Treatment) Bill on 22 February 2008. Check out the TULO and TUC websites on this key trade union issue. Identities have obviously been changed to protect sources.
I believe that the average London wage is now £45,000 per year?
Permanent Staff: Worker 1: "Ron” “Ron” has been directly employed by the local authority for the last 5 years. His grade is on JNC National Terms and conditions including London Weighting. He works 35 hours per week. He is paid Gross £9.92 per hour, £18,051 per year (£347 per week). If Ron is sick he can receive up to 6 months full pay and another 6 months at ½ pay. Ron is a member of the local government pension scheme. His employer also pays the equivalent of 14% of his salary on his behalf into the scheme. Ron has 32 days annual leave per year (not including Bank holidays).
Agency Staff: Worker 2: “David”“ David” works alongside Ron and carries out exactly the same duties as the other permanent staff. They even wear the same uniform. David works also 35 hours a week. However, he is paid the National Minimum Wage Gross £5.52 per hour, £10, 046 per year (£193.20 per week). He gets no company sick pay, the basic statutory annual leave and no pension. David was born overseas. David sends money back home to his family who are dependant on his earnings. He has worked continually as an agency caretaker for the same local authority in East London for over 4 years. It is hard and difficult work cleaning housing estates. He rents a room in a shared house for £280 per month (£64 per week).
Worker 3: “Trevor” "Trevor" has worked for the authority for over 3 years. He is on the same terms and conditions as David. Trevor suffers from cancer and has to have regular treatment. If he does not work he does not get paid. So he has to come into work even if he feels unwell or is suffering from the side effects of this treatment. He has to pay £350 per month rent for a room with shared facilities. He has noticed that agency staff can be sacked without notice or for no apparent reason. Also some people have not been paid for work after being told not to come back to a job. Caretaking is a difficult and demanding job; he has come across people taking drugs and been sworn and threatened by them. When he was in hospital due to his illness he did not even receive statutory sick pay.
Conclusion (aka "the bleeding obvious") Ron gets paid substantially more (£8,005 pa) than his colleagues David and Trevor. He also has a decent pension and paid sick leave if he is ill. He has significantly more annual leave as well as other “big company” benefits.
Ron, David and Trevor have all done exactly the same job for the same “employer” for at least the last 3 years.
How can we tackle poverty in East London unless we make sure that all vulnerable staff are paid a “living wage”?
(Picture is of top Housing East London Caretaker and UNISON member “Rab” who was on NJC terms until he recently changed jobs. His previous employer was not part of this sample)
Via "Facebook" today I got a message that TULO has set up an "email tool". This is to enable trade unionists to contact their local Labour MP’s and ask them to support the new private members Bill by Andrew Miller MP, the Temporary and Agency Workers (Equal Treatment) Bill.
This Bill is up for its second reading on Friday 22nd February, and if it is to proceed then it will need the support of at least 100 MPs.
There is a drop-down menu to select your MP and a “model” message. You can also lobby via letter John Hutton MP, secretary of state.
Rt Hon John Hutton MP, Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform1 Victoria Street, London SW1H 0ET
The Guardian today reports that there might be some movement in the Government’s position. Senior Labour backbenchers have met Gordon Brown aides on this issue. I believe that next month, the European Social Council will meet again to try and come to a European Union wide agreement. Hopefully this will result in a more positive result than last time!
You can also join the TULO Facebook group on this important campaign.
No Justice for agency workers I’m afraid. The European Union “Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council” (also known for some reason as Europe’s Social Affairs council) met yesterday. I posted on Wednesday about media reports that a deal had been struck.
Apparently enough member states had agreed to finally give agency workers in the EU employment rights and to put an end to a two tier “terms and conditions” workforce. Agency staff would be on broadly similar terms as permanent staff. There is majority voting on this issue.
However in a classic EU fudge – the decision has been put off again (I quote) “Having in mind the fact that this proposal is still very recent, as well as the sensitive nature of these directives to some member states and the importance of exploring all attempts to reach an agreement as large as possible before final decision, the Council agreed that the best option at this moment was to postpone a decision, in order to further pursue the dialogue”.
Naturally TUC General Secretary, Brendon Barber is furious “'This is a bad day for rights at work across Europe, but especially in the UK.'
It is very disappointing that there has been no progress on the agency working Directive. There is real anger among unions today that the UK Government played the pivotal role in blocking progress today on this modest measure to improve workplace justice. '
Contrary to business scare-mongering, this Directive would not stop agencies providing temporary staff to employers who need them. What it would have done was both make it more difficult for employers to undercut wages and conditions and help slow the growth of a two-tier workforce. But unions will not give up the campaign to deliver justice for agency workers......"
The next Council meeting is not until I think February next year. The T&G Unite have a good site on this matter.
OK we need to think on the next step forward. Agency workers rights is still a "Warwick agreement" and Labour Party manifesto commitment. How to lobby and pressure the government to do the decent thing next year?
Good to read in the Times On-line today that exploited agency workers may finally be given some protection under an EU directive and no longer treated as 3rd class citizens.
Details are a little unclear but I suspect that “The Times” is scaremongering as usual over the suggestion that agency workers will be getting “full rights” after only 6 weeks. It takes a year for permanent staff to be given protection from unfair dismissal so I can’t see agency staff being given greater rights than permanent.
I hope that it is intended to put an end to a two tier “terms and conditions” workforce and that agency staff should be on “broadly similar” terms as permanent staff. I cannot for the life of me work out why anyone apart from agency bosses would be opposed to this? We gave part time and long term directly employed temps the same rights years ago. The world did not end. The harsh facts of the matter are that many agency workers are treated like dirt by their employers and something simply needs to be done about it.
Also, we see the CBI are up to their usual dirty tricks by claiming that up to “250,000” workers will lose their jobs if this directive is implemented! Yeah, just like the millions of jobs they forecast will be lost if there was a minimum wage.
It is, to say the least, “disappointing” that the Labour government is apparently trying to delay the changes. I can understand why they feel that they have to keep up this “Fairness not Favours” balancing act on employment issues. Labour wants (and needs) the support of “middle England” as well as the unions. However, this is 100% a fundamental fairness and social justice issue. Many agency jobs are not on real “temporary” assignments. They are just cheap and easy to get rid of. Millions of vulnerable British workers having to put up with low wages, no employment tenure and no sickness or pension benefits. The exchequer is being robbed out of billions in lost PAYE taxation and national insurance payments from bogus so-called self employment. In Tower Hamlets Council most of the housing caretakers are agency staff on minimum wage, no sick pay, no overtime rates, no employment protection and of course, no pensions. How on earth can anyone survive on £5.52 per hour in inner London?
To be fair to the government they say they are committed to bringing in rights for agency workers (its also I think an outstanding commitment from the Warwick agreement?) but say they “are worried” that the current proposals are badly written and could harm employment. I think these worries are overdone and exaggerated.
Maybe this is a vision thing for Gordon? It is also electorally clear “red water” that we ought to exploit for all its worth. The Tories are of course opposed to any such change.
Millions of agency workers could see tangible real benefits from a Labour government – pounds in their pocket, money if they become ill and money towards a pension for when they grow old. Genuine, real short term employment needs and flexibility will not suffer and no doubt there will still remain a large agency sector.
However what we can get rid of is 19th century Dickensian employment practices that have no place in a 21st century that should be led by principals of fairness and social justice (and BTW – a century of Labour Party governments with clear majorities?)
John Gray
