Justice for Agency Workers ‘Euro-trashed’ Campaign

Agency Workers: The Myths Trashed

Myth: Agency workers get paid more than permanent staff.
Truth: Some do, but they are in the minority, and tend to be in higher skilled areas like IT, engineering and the medical profession. Most temporary agency workers are employed in low paid jobs like security, cleaning, labouring and office clerical work, and typically receive inferior pay and terms and conditions to permanent employees for equal work.

Myth: Giving equal rights to agency workers will reduce labour market flexibility.
Truth: Giving equal rights to agency workers will not impact on the elements of flexibility that bring the most benefit to employers, such as easy access to labour, lower administrative costs and the ability to better manage peaks and troughs of demand.

Myth: Britain has more agency workers than other countries so granting equal rights would have more impact here.
Truth: The agency workforce in the Netherlands, France, Luxembourg and Poland, make up a higher percentage of the total workforce than they do in Britain. All four countries offer equal pay and rights to agency workers and require temporary agencies to operate with a licence.

Myth: Giving equal rights to agency workers would reduce demand for agency workers and frustrate the ability of temporary work agencies to operate.
Truth: France is the largest market for global temporary agencies Manpower and Adecco, despite having one of the strictest regulatory frameworks for the treatment of agency workers, requiring temporary agencies to obtain a licence and ensuring workers have parity in terms of pay and conditions with permanent employees. Manpower and Adecco respectively do 34% and 36% of their business there.

Myth: Giving equal rights to agency workers will have an adverse impact on UK productivity.
Truth: In some countries where there is pay parity for agency workers productivity is greater than it is in the UK. In France, for example, productivity per hour is 29% higher and productivity per worker is 11% higher than in the UK (DTI 2005).

Myth: Agency workers are prepared to trade rights and accept lower wages in return for flexibility.
Truth: Many agency workers do work for agencies because they want flexibility, but flexibility is mutually beneficial to both workers and employers, and is not a reason to justify denying agency workers the right to equal pay and conditions.

Myth: The UK Government is in favour of the principles of the Temporary Agency Workers Directive.
Truth: The underlying principles of the TAWD are equal pay, equal terms and conditions and equal employment status for agency workers. The UK Government has demonstrated its opposition to these principles by calling for the exclusion of rights to equal pay, and the inclusion of a qualifying period before equal treatment applies.