Agency workers 'face insecurity'

Unite said one of its members spent six weeks working for leading high street employment agencies in and around the Wolverhampton constituency of employment minister Pat McFadden, discovering a "shadowy and insecure" world of work.

The union said the research underlined the need for the Government to support a backbench Bill aimed at giving new rights to agency workers, which receives its second Commons reading on Friday.

The "mystery" worker, known only as Simon, said: "I am a union activist so I thought I knew what to expect in undertaking this work but what I saw shocked and depressed me.

"Even as a skilled manufacturing worker I barely earned above the minimum wage, I had illegal deductions taken from my pay, I had to work dangerous machinery without any training and without the legally required protective equipment, and these jobs came via so-called 'legitimate' agencies.

"For other agency workers, the experience was even worse. Their contract-to-contract existence means a life of hardship, desperation and a weekly struggle to make ends meet.

"Jobs I would have sworn would be permanent with good terms, pensions and sick pay are now temporary, minimum wage work with no overtime, holiday or sick pay."

Tony Woodley, joint general secretary of Unite, said: "Working men and women are now being viewed as dispensable labour, hired and fired at will, never knowing from one day to the next if they have a job or will earn enough to make ends meet. This is not flexibility, it is exploitation.

Claims from the investigation included no books for detailing accidents, minimal health and safety training, pay rates cut if days off were taken and advertised wage rates rarely honoured.

Business groups have urged the Government not to introduce legislation giving new employment rights to agency workers, arguing it would hit the UK's flexible labour market and could affect jobs.