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Agency workers - a guide for activists

Agency workers - an introduction

PCS policy on agency workers, as agreed by the national executive committee July 2005, is:

  • to campaign for permanent posts
  • to campaign for agency and permanent workers to have comparable pay and terms and conditions
  • to organise agency workers and help them win recognition.

In the context of job cuts and job insecurity, this means that:

  • if there's work to do be done we would prefer to see permanent contracts
  • if the work need is short-term our choice is for fixed-term contracts with fair and open recruitment, with agency workers used by agreement as a last resort
  • agency workers should have a fair chance to apply for jobs
  • agency workers' pay and terms and conditions should be comparable with those of permanent staff.

The use of agency workers by government and commercial sector employers is becoming more and more common.

While some agency workers just cover short-term absences, in many cases they do the same work as permanent or fixed term colleagues, often for extended periods of time, and almost always on worse pay and terms and conditions.

Under the government's current efficiency drive the use of agency workers has become a pressing issue.

All departments, agencies and non departmental public bodies (NDPBs) are required to set efficiency targets in order to save money.

This is resulting in job cuts and relocations in many areas. Between 2005 and 2008 the government has said there will be 104,000 job cuts and relocations with further cuts beyond 2008. In areas that have been outsourced there is also pressure to save money as departments try to keep contract costs down and contractors try to win contracts.

Although posts are being cut, the work has not gone away. Using agency workers has been one of the ways that departments have filled the gap.

For example in Scottish Executive there has been virtually no external recruitment of permanent staff in the last year, but a big increase in the use of temporary agency staff, encouraged by discretion to recruit being given to local managers.

In the Learning and Skills Council, during the year following the 2005 job cuts and restructuring exercise, the amount of money spent on temporary agency workers shot up from £4 million to £8 million.

The costs of employing agency workers appear in different accounts from those for fixed term or permanent staff, so employing agency workers is attractive to departments seeking to keep to their efficiency targets for staffing.

But using agency workers is a more expensive option than using permanent or fixed term employees.

While agency workers are often paid the national minimum wage, the agency receives a hefty fee.

In the Rural Payments Agency in Workington, PCS representatives estimate that Adecco gets an average £9 per hour for each agency worker employed.

The Department of Health uses four employment agencies with varying charges.

Manpower charges £12.83 per hour for an administrative officer and pays the worker £8.40 per hour, while Hays charges £9.71 per hour for the same post and pays the worker £6.55.

In the Scottish Executive each agency worker costs an average of £25,000 per year, while the posts have a starting salary of £12,300 per year. And in DCA the cost of paying for agency workers and consultants combined comes to 18% of the pay bill.

How many agency workers does the government employ?

We do not have a complete set of figures for the use of agency workers across the civil service and other bodies.

The most recent information we have suggests that agency workers form a significant proportion of staff in many areas.

  • Fujitsu (tax credits) - 80%
  • RPA Newcastle - 55%
  • RPA Workington - 35%
  • Driving Standards Agency - 20%
  • Scottish Parliament 20% approximately
  • Home Office 10%
  • Learning and Skills Council at least 8%
  • Welsh Assembly Government 7%
  • Department of Health 7%
  • MOD DARA 5% approximately

Comprehensive information about agency worker use and conditions is needed to help with campaigning, negotiating and organising agency workers.

Although we have some very interesting anecdotes, we need to have an overall clear picture to see how widespread the use of agency workers is, and to get an idea of the scope of the problem of exploitation.

Agency workers winning a better deal

Scottish Parliament

In the Scottish Parliament agency workers are paid at a rate equivalent to the minimum of the grade for the job they’re doing, and get across-the-board pay rises in line with those for permanent workers (though they don’t get progression pay).

Siemens

In Siemens Business Services, Barclays account, Glasgow, about 35 agency workers were converted into permanent contracts in 2004 as a result of a union campaign.

National Savings

In 2004, agency workers at National Savings had their pay raised to permanent rates.

This has been achieved by PCS representatives involving all members, whatever their status, in the campaign.

Permanent staff are very concerned about the way their agency worker colleagues are treated. A better deal has been won through everyone working together.

Welsh Assembly

PCS members have campaigned successfully and permanent and temporary agency members have won the following:

  • all new temporary agency workers will be on Welsh Assembly Government terms and conditions including sick pay, 30 days holiday, pay on the minimum for the grade in which they are working, and involvement in the performance management process
  • all existing temporary agency staff will be transferred to fixed term employee status – either with the employment agency or with the Assembly, depending on length of service 

Case study, organising for agency workers rights

This is a case study about PCS members campaigning and organising for agency workers rights and recognition at British Cattle Movement Service (BCMS) in Workington.

This campaign illustrates many of the points made in this guidance.

Background of the campaign

The government set up the British Cattle Movement Service (BCMS) in 1998 to establish monitoring services in the wake of the BSE outbreak.

The scope of the service increased over time to include work resulting from other outbreaks of diseases such as foot and mouth.

Half the workforce at the British Cattle Movement Service in Workington (roughly 350 staff) is agency staff employed by Adecco recruitment agency.

Three quarters of these staff have been employed at BCMS for more than two years, and a number of these for over five years.

Recently a further 330 new agency staff have been employed to administrate permanent work – the single payment to farmers, an annual subsidy, and there are plans to employ a further 170 agency staff.

The service will be employing around 850 agency staff and only 350 permanent staff.

Agency staff all receive minimum wage, whilst the department pays Adecco £10.23 an hour for each individual worker.

A large proportion of these new staff are aged between 16–18.

Despite the department claiming that the new staff are to be employed on a temporary basis until September accommodation costing £3 million has been built to house them.

Aims of campaign

  • In 2005 the local branch began a campaign at Workington to:
  • Organise and gain recognition with agency workers
  • Campaign for permanent posts
  • Help agency workers win terms and conditions equivalent to those of their permanent colleagues
  • Include agency workers in the membership and activity of the local union branch.

Campaign strategy

A recruitment campaign at Workington was set up and this included devising specialised recruitment literature, running desk topping recruitment and holding site meetings.

The initial success of this campaign meant that around 90% of agency staff joined the union and some activists were elected.

Members’ meetings were then held and local campaign literature was produced including leaflets, stickers and posters.

Civil servants who were union members working locally were involved in the campaign and became convinced of the need to support their agency colleagues in the campaign for equal rights and both campaigned together.

PCS initiated a campaign of writing letters to MPs, the PCS parliamentary group received regular updates, and local press releases ensured excellent local press coverage of the issue.

A campaign to involve the local community was launched bringing together the support of local trade unions and other community groups.This culminated in a public rally with guest speakers including the local MP.

Alongside the campaign for comparable rights for agency staff, an exercise was held to improve the skills of the workforce.

This led to 35 level 1 and 2 level literacy accreditations which helped the agency workers in applying for the permanent posts.

Outcome

As a direct result of the campaign, 100 new permanent jobs were established in the BCMS and 37 of these eventually were awarded to agency workers. The literacy accreditations that the temporary staff gained through union extra skills training helped staff in their applications for the new posts.

In early September 2006, Adecco staff voted overwhelm ingly for trade union recognition in an independent ballot.

Adecco’s initial refusal to voluntarily recognise the union meant that PCS agency worker members were forced to use the legal route to force recognition through the Central Arbitration Committee the first time that a trade union in the UK has taken this process to this stage with an employment agency.

In a 64% turnout, 100% of all voters voted for union recognition. A recognition agreement has been drawn up and we are now working on winning real improvements to Adecco members pay and conditions.

More information is available from the PCS organising and learning department.

Agency workers' rights

On average, agency workers in the UK receive substantially lower pay than permanent staff, have worse terms and conditions and fewer employment rights.

Although they have working time and holiday rights, they are entitled to only four weeks paid holiday a year, including bank holidays (this means that in practice they get only 12 days holiday).

They have no pension and rarely have access to training and development. They have virtually no job security and can be sent back to the agency without any opportunity of finding out the reason they have lost a booking or to challenge it.

The UK lags behind Europe in the rights it gives to agency workers. In most European countries, agency workers get pay equal to that of permanent staff and similar working conditions and training opportunities. In many countries, the circumstances in which agency workers can be used is restricted.

Summary of agency workers’ rights

Below is a brief summary of agency workers’ rights. The TUC has published a more detailed guide, ‘Know Your Rights’, available from the TUC Worksmart website.

All workers have some important rights from their first day of work:
  • the national minimum wage and limitations on deductions that can be made from your pay
  • working time rights including limiting the number of hours you work per week, rest breaks and holidays
  • rights to health and safety protection
  • the right to join a union and for the employer to allow you to be accompanied at a workplace disciplinary or grievance hearing (although there is no legal obligation on a union to represent you)
  • the right to be protected for whistleblowing
  • protection from discrimination on the grounds of race, sex, disability, religion or belief, sexual orientation and age.

 

In some circumstances agency workers can get:
  • statutory maternity pay
  • statutory sick pay

But the conditions are tough and not many qualify.

 

Agency workers have some special rights:
  • the agency is not allowed to charge you a fee for finding you work, and they cannot insist that you buy other services such as CV writing
  • the agency cannot withhold your pay because they have not received payment from the client employer or because you cannot produce a signed timesheet
  • it is the agency’s responsibility to establish the hours you work and to pay you for them
  • the agency must give you a written statement of terms and conditions when you sign on, covering employment status, rate of pay, payment periods, leave and notice, and they cannot change these without your agreement
  • the agency must check health and safety risks before you are placed with an organisation.

 

There are some important rights which most agency workers are excluded from:
  • maternity and paternity leave and other flexible working rights
  • the right to paid notice on the termination of employment
  • the right to claim unfair dismissal
  • the right to redundancy pay (either statutory or the more generous contractual payments such as those made under the Civil Service Compensation Scheme).

This is because of the employment status of agency workers: the law in this area is developing and PCS research, legal services and Thompsons lawyers are keeping this under review.

If reps are considering a legal case, they should email Imogen Radford at imogen@pcs.org.uk or write to her at 160 Falcon Road, London SW11 2LN.

Organising agency workers

Agency workers are often worried that campaigning for their rights might threaten their jobs.

This is a legitimate fear as agency workers do have less protection from dismissal than their permanent colleagues.

Through a strong campaign, however, and with the support of colleagues on permanent contracts, it is possible to achieve a better deal for agency workers.

Encourage agency workers to join the union

Experience in this area shows that making temporary workers aware that they are not alone does help to encourage them to join the union.

Explaining the injustice to permanent staff and seeking their support by attending a meeting, signing a petition or talking to colleagues are ways of successfully involving them in the campaign.

A good example of this sort of solidarity comes from the Learning and Skills Council where there is a very real threat that agency workers will be discarded because of pressure to cut costs and staff.

Activists persuaded their colleagues of the unfair deal that agency workers get and as a result permanent staff were willing to raise the issue and campaign on it.

Campaigning for agency workers’ rights in the workplace is a new area for us, so it is important to plan and be clear about what we want to achieve. We need to be realistic so as not to raise people’s expectations and then be unable to deliver.

Make sure you have all the facts both about the rights of agency workers and also the local situation for workers and the scope of the agency contract.

Regional organisers can offer support

Remember full time regional organisers are experienced in assisting members organising in these areas and will be a valuable source of support.

Your full time regional organiser can give you advice on how to proceed in:

  • establishing a bargaining unit
  • starting discussions about the feasibility of a recognition campaign
  • getting direct debit forms for people to join
  • establishing a subscriptions rate
  • adding an employment agency as an employer for your local branch on Commix, and making sure that new members are allocated to the correct place on Commix

Before you start a campaign

Before you begin a workplace campaign there are a number of things you need to think about:

How many agency workers are employed? You need to know the size of the potential membership.

Are they all from the same agency? If not, this will cause problems in seeking recognition and will make it more difficult to negotiate with an employer. It might also mean that people have different conditions.

Are they contained in one area/work type/project etc? What is the scope of the agency contract? Are they confined to your office locally or across the whole of the group?

What is the length of time they have been placed in their position? The longer the service – particularly if they are not there to cover for a specific reason such as a sickness absence – the easier it is to argue against them receiving worse pay and terms and conditions than the people they work alongside.

Agency workers are unlikely to gain additional rights for having been there one year because of their employment status. Find out more about agency workers' rights.

Do we already have a recognition agreement for these workers? Does any other union have recognition or are we able to seek recognition for these workers?

How can your branch represent these workers once they are members? You need to think about how the branch will deal with personal cases if they arise and complications that might occur in seeking to represent people in this situation.

It would be best to seek guidance from your PCS regional organiser on any limitations. You might also need to discuss with your local management the arrangements for representing agency workers.

How will I get appropriate information? It is important to think about how you will get information because the usual avenues of talking to your departmental management or the agency might not be available.

Contact headquarters research, information services or campaigns for more advice. And consider doing a survey, as explained further below.

Where to begin campaign?

Choosing an issue

It is important to pick issues that will make people interested in joining the union.

These need to be issues that workers can relate to. It should be an issue around which the vast majority of staff feel strongly something that needs to change and which, with effort, it would be possible to change.

We need to get feedback from members or potential members to find the right issues to campaign on. The best methods for doing this are talking to members one to one, holding workplace meetings and conducting surveys.

Making a plan

Think about timescales for a campaign and be clear about the different steps and targets you will want throughout your campaign. This plan will of course need to stay flexible.

Mapping agency workers

As agency workers are not employed directly by the government department you might find it more difficult to get accurate information and will need to look at more inventive ways to get the information you need.

You might consider doing a simple survey asking:

  • the type of work and department/area they work in
  • length of service
  • agency they work for
  • if they are a member of the union
  • concerns about work related issues.

It is also important to get people’s contact details so you can follow them up and ask them to join.

Choosing activists

Find people willing to be activists and contacts for the agency workers that you are rying t organise. Find a natural leader someone that people will respect and listen to. You might want to think of mentoring new reps, so they have someone to ask questions and where they feel like they can go for help and advice.

Recruiting agency workers and adding them to Commix

All agency workers should join PCS via a direct debit application form and will pay a reduced subscription rate to reflect the fact that a collective bargaining agreement does
not cover them. They may also qualify for six months’ free subscriptions.

Agency workers should be allocated to the same workplace on Commix as other PCS members in that workplace, although a new employer will probably need to be created on Commix for them.

This will ensure that they have equal rights within the union to other members and will be able to vote in branch and other elections.

Please note: It is important that before you start recruiting agency workers you speak to a PCS fulltime regional organiser to set up these details on Commix. If this is not done, it is possible that the form could be returned or the new member could be allocated to the incorrect workplace or branch and/or the wrong subscription rate could be levied.

Negotiating change with employers

We are campaigning nationally for agency workers, where they are employed, to be paid at a rate equivalent to that for permanent workers and to have equal holiday and sick pay, and to be treated fairly.

We are raising the issue centrally with the government. However, the most effective work will be taken forward in groups and at a local level.

Permanent posts

Raise the demand that work should be done by staff in permanent posts – or if it is genuinely short-term by staff on fixed term appointments – with your employer. If appropriate, negotiate a phased approach to reach this objective.

Argue that in the context of job cuts the employer should not be spending large sums of money on agency fees.

Under the agreement with the Cabinet Office on avoiding compulsory redundancy (known as ‘the protocols’) the employer must look to surplus staff in other departments to fill any vacancies.

Argue that if they still need to recruit then they should conduct proper, fair and open recruitment which would give agency workers the opportunity to apply.
Try to get the employer to arrange skills training and negotiate on the job criteria to ensure agency workers have a fair chance to apply. An example where this has been achieved is the Rural Payments Agency in Workington.

Where agency workers are used in justifiable, limited and short-term circumstances, this should only be by agreement with union negotiators. Please let us know about any agreements you reach.

Comparable pay and terms and conditions for agency and permanent workers

Argue for comparable pay and terms and conditions.

Gather information on current pay and term and conditions to use in local campaigning. Please pass this information to the Protect Public Service unit at PCS HQ.

Seek agreement in your department, agency, NDPB or other organisation for agency workers, where employed, to be paid at an equivalent rate, to get equal holidays and sick pay, and to be treated fairly.
 

Negotiate with the organisation supplying agency workers

Try to influence the process early on, in relation to circumstances for use, and pay and terms and conditions. Try to get your department to agree only to accept tenders from agencies who pay their workers well and offer decent terms and conditions.

Contact the protect public services unit for more advice on this.

Who to contact for information and advice

You can call on a number of headquarters and regional sources of further help in taking forward campaigning, negotiating and
organising agency workers:

Protect public services unit

Imogen Radford

Rita Aghoghovbia

Information service

Quentin Hogg, senior information officer

Campaigns

Natasha Burgess, Campaigns Officer

National organisers

Shavanah Taj, National Organiser

Gareth Greenidge, Organising Officer

Tracy Edwards, Young Members Organiser

Commercial Sector
 
Alen Clifford, Organiser

Regional organisers

Richard Edwards Regional Organiser, Eastern

Sarah Taiwo Regional Organiser, London and South East

Tiia Stephens Regional Organiser, London and South East

Trudy Allen, Regional Organiser, Midlands

Paula Wood, Regional Organiser, North West

Julie Young, Regional Organiser, Northern

Colm Porter Regional Organiser, South West

Juanita Charles, Regional Organiser, Yorkshire and Humberside

Alison Burrowes, Regional Organiser, Wales

Jude Ritchie, Regional Organiser, Scotland