Agency Deal Is Step In The Right Direction But Many Construction Workers Still Exploited

Construction union UCATT have welcomed the deal between unions and the Government on the rights of agency workers but have warned that it will not solve most problems of exploited workers in the construction industry.

The Government today (May 20) announced that they would table legislation, which will give agency workers the same rights as permanent employees, including equal pay after they have worked for a company for 12 weeks.

Alan Ritchie, general secretary of UCATT, said: “This decision by the Government is long overdue and it will make a huge difference to hundreds of thousands of agency workers who have faced grossly unfair discrimination at work.”

However UCATT has warned that the major issues of exploitation in construction are caused by workers being forced to work bogusly self-employed. The bogus self-employed have all the attributes of an employee but are officially classified as self-employed.

Around 500,000 workers in construction work bogus self-employed under the Construction Industry Scheme (CIS), these workers do not have employment rights, can be sacked at a moments notice, do not receive holiday pay or sick pay and do not have pensions.

Nor will the new legislation assist the thousands of workers who are employed by gangmasters in the construction industry. These often migrant workers are typically paid lower rates of pay and often also have to pay excessive deductions for unwanted services such as accommodation and transport costs.

Alan Ritchie, added: “Despite the proposed new legislation construction will remain the most casualised industry in Britain. It is good news that the Government is tackling exploitation in the workplace. In order to stamp out these practices in my industry they need to extend the Gangmasters Act to construction and abolish CIS.”

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