Sacked for grieving

There’s nothing more difficult than losing a family member. Grieving takes time – time for which most bosses will give their workers off from work.

But not so for Shaun Bate of Liverpool, whose sister recently passed away. He’s an agency worker and so does not enjoy many of the rights and entitlements that those who are classified as employees do.

Like any grieving brother would, Bate asked for a week off from work and was granted the time. He returned to work and then took a day off the following week to attend his sister’s funeral.

His boss assured him that taking time off would not be a problem.

Bate was anticipating being put on a permanent contract in the new year, but just as he returned to work after the funeral, he was given the sack.

“It came out of nowhere,” he told the Liverpool Echo.

“It’s horrible losing a job,” he explained. “Panic sets in when you’ve got responsibilities. And at that time it was stress I didn’t need so soon after my sister passed away.”

Bate has been working for agencies for years and highlighted how they’re all often the same.

“I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been treated decently through agency work,” he said.

Bate recounted how at one agency he worked, he was told he’d get a permanent role in 12 weeks. But then after he’d worked for the agency for 10 weeks, he was told the permanent job was no longer available. To add insult to injury, he spent his last two weeks training recruits who would be replacing him.

Common reality

Unite regional secretary for the North West Mick Whitley said that stories like Bate’s are an all-too common reality for agency workers.

“A story like this is yet another example of how agency workers are all too often treated as second class citizens by bad bosses using draconian methods to maximise profits,” he said. “Employment agencies which treat workers in such a way should be named and shamed.”

The number of people working for agencies is expected to drastically rise in the next few years, according to a new report out last week from the Resolution Foundation, which noted that more than 1m workers will be employed through agencies by the end of the decade.

Agency work is spread fairly evenly throughout the country, with London and the South East having the greatest proportion of agency workers, followed by the North West.

Manufacturing is the industry which employs the highest share of agency workers at just over 4.1 per cent, with the transport, storage and communication sector also having a relatively high concentration of agency workers at 4 per cent.

Although more men are agency workers than women, the number of women working for agencies is growing at a much faster rate.

If you’re an ethnic minority, you’re much more likely to be an agency worker – an astonishing 8 per cent of the black, African and Caribbean workforce is in agency work, compared to only 2.2 per cent of those who identify as white.

Not only are agency workers often more likely to be exploited – Sports Direct’s shocking treatment of agency workers at its main warehouse in Shirebrook, exposed by Unite, is one such example – but they are much more likely to get paid less.

The Resolution Foundation found that the pay penalty for agency working amounts to a significant ÂŁ430 a year.

This agency worker pay gap exists despite regulations which came into force in 2011 and were designed to ensure agency workers working alongside permanent employees would receive to equal pay.

Agency Worker Regulations (AWR) have in the last few years been undermined by a loophole called the Swedish derogation which allows agencies to opt out their workers from equal pay rules.

Unite along with the TUC have long argued that the loophole has been abused and must be closed.

A TUC analysis found that because of the loophole, some agency workers were getting paid ÂŁ135 a week less than employees doing the exact same job.

“Agency workers don’t deserve to be treated like second-class citizens,” said TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady. “But they are often paid less than their permanent colleagues, even when they do exactly the same job.”

“As well as suffering a pay penalty, agency staff have fewer rights at work and are more vulnerable to exploitation.”

“We need the government to toughen the law to create a level playing field for agency workers,” she added. “Too many employers are getting away with treating them unfairly.”

Whitley agreed.

End exploitation call

“Having fewer rights and often paid less than their permanent colleagues, agency workers are getting a raw deal,” he said. “It’s high time the government took action and ended the exploitation of agency workers.”

Whitley noted too that Unite has been successful representing agency workers, and he urged them to join.

“We’ve had success negotiating deals for better pay and guaranteed hours, and we’ve also convinced many companies to switch agency workers to fixed-term contracts,” he explained.

Unite assistant general secretary Steve Turner echoed the call for effective legislation.

“Despite an ever growing litany of scandals emerging from the shadowy world of employment agencies, this government has set itself against protecting some of the most vulnerable workers in the country,” he said.

“Cuts to enforcement bodies like the Employment Agency Standards Committee and the Health and Safety Executive have made a bad situation worse.”

“The Tories need to rethink their agenda towards workers’ rights and put in place legislation, and the means to enforce it, that protects people from exploitation,” he added. “But even if that does happen, we know from experience that workers’ rights are worthless without strong and effective trade unions to back them up.”