Trevor sorts it out!

Trevor Simpson is a Unite convenor on the Westfield, White City construction site in west London.

He has been on the site for two and a half years and during that time he has managed to make substantial improvements for the workforce.

When Trevor arrived on the site, many workers were being forced to be paid via umbrella companies. The lowest paid were receiving just ÂŁ6.50 an hour. After substantial reductions were made from their wages, which occurs with umbrella company contracts, they were actually being paid below the minimum wage.

Trevor has set about resolving these issues. Firstly he got an agreement with Westfield that for the contractors that Westfield operates with directly, umbrella companies are banned and the workers are employed on a standard PAYE basis. This has had a particularly positive impact for workers undertaking roles such as security and logistics.

Trevor then set about ensuring that the site adopted the London Living Wage, which is currently ÂŁ9.75 an hour. Finally he ensured that all workers were entitled to overtime and unsocial hours payments.

It means that the lowest paid workers have had substantial increases in pay and for some of the hours they work, they are being paid double what they were before Trevor arrived.

In a further notable achievement Trevor has been successful in recruiting two Romanian shop stewards. This has helped him to dramatically increase membership in a group where the union has previously struggled to recruit.

Despite his successes Trevor is still frustrated he wants to see umbrella companies and zero hours contracts outlawed and still witnesses the damage these nefarious forms of employment are causing.

On his site there are currently 1,000 workers and despite Westfield’s efforts on cracking down on umbrella companies there are still roughly 100-150 workers on the site being paid in this way. Trevor says: “Everyone who comes through an agency is with an umbrella company.”

The workers forced to be paid via an umbrella company and are subject to large deductions from their wages. They have to pay employer’s national insurance contributions as well as employee’s national insurance contributions and income tax which means they are paying 46 pence in the pound of eligible earnings.

On top of this their holiday pay is often rolled into the rate which means that are given a weekly amount but when they take annual leave they are unpaid. If they opt into the auto-enrolment pension scheme they have to pay both their own contributions and that of the employer.

As a final insult to injury they are charged between £15-£30 a week by the umbrella company to be paid in this way. The workers aren’t even give a payslip, instead they receive a text which tells them how much has been filched from their wages each week

Bizarre and exploitative

To Trevor’s frustration while bizarre and exploitative, umbrella companies are essentially legal, although in some cases a claim for unfair deduction of wages is possible depending on an individual’s contract and what they have agreed to.

As well as umbrella companies, Trevor has also picked up the use of zero hours contracts on the site “although this has been kept very quiet”.

As Trevor says, with zero hours contracts that are “no certainties” the workers can be told “there is no work for you tomorrow don’t turn up.

When I asked how often this happens Trevor admits it is difficult to assess. “It is difficult to know as if they are told not to be on site you don’t see them. Often workers don’t protest as these see it as an accepted fact.

Trevor also highlights the more sinister side of zero hours contracts. “There is a real concern about health and safety. The workers will do stuff they know they shouldn’t due to the fear that they will be told don’t turn up the next day.”

Trevor’s story shows two things. Firstly, the enormous positive influence that Unite’s activists are having on organised construction sites in improving the employment conditions and lives of construction workers.

Secondly, despite Unite’s incredibly good work it is going to be difficult to remove the blight of umbrella companies, zero hours contracts and bogus self-employment from the construction industry until there is a Labour government, which is committed to abolishing these forms of exploitation.