UCATT Warns Gangmasters Will Ignore New Agency Rules

Following today’s (May 8) publication of the Government’s consultation on implementing the Agency Workers Directive, construction union UCATT are demanding an urgent radical rethink of the proposals in order to protect construction workers.

The Government have insisted that agency workers will have to serve a 12 week qualifying period before they receive employment rights. UCATT are warning that in construction, agency workers are regularly moved between sites and that unregistered gangmasters will simply ignore any new rules.

Alan Ritchie, General Secretary, of UCATT, said: “If the Government are serious about improving conditions for agency workers, then they must introduce tougher rules in construction. A one size fits all approach will fail. There is a vast difference between agency workers operating in static, regulated, offices and the conditions in construction where workers operate in a highly casualised environment and are frequently moved from site to site.”

In recent years there has been a huge growth in employment agencies and gangmasters operating in the construction industry. This has led to high levels of exploitation with workers experiencing a series of detriments including: pay below the industry minimums (in some cases below the minimum wage), forced to work excessive hours, overcharged for substandard accommodation, forced to pay for protective clothing and unlikely to receive holiday or sick pay.

Last year UCATT discovered that a group of Lithuanian workers, working for a gangmaster on a Skanska PFI hospital site in Mansfield Nottinghamshire, were receiving wages of just £8.80 a week.

Mr Ritchie, added: “We will play a full and active part in the consultation process and will be arguing that construction should be considered a special case, where tougher rules must apply. Unlike other industries it is very easy to move workers from one site to another after 10 or 11 weeks, therefore permanently denying agency workers equal treatment.”

UCATT campaigns for the Gangmasters Licensing Act to be extended to the construction industry. UCATT believe that extending the GLA’s remit to cover construction will do more to protect agency workers in the sector; than will the proposed new rules on agency workers.

Mr Ritchie, further added: “The biggest challenges in construction concern the casualised nature of the industry. This leads to exploitation of workers but also increases injuries and deaths. By reducing casualisation through regulating gangmasters and employment agencies, conditions on sites would improve dramatically almost overnight.”

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