agencey working

[postman1965]

Royal Mail said it would avoid sealing post boxes until they became full and may use agency workers in place of striking postmen and women. found in the daily express news

[pickaname]

isnt this illegal?

[the beautiful bd south]

agency been used at bradford mc????

[de-coded]

Possible £5,000 fine per agency worker used to replace a postie on strike taken from a GMB Union page during a JJB Dispute

Staff from one agency, Bond Personnel, work in Warehouse 3 only on picking duties only. The second agency Heads do no picking in Warehouse 3. They do a variety of jobs in Warehouse 2 and 3 but not the bulk truck. Both supply weekend staff who do not work on weekdays. On strike days, if these workers from these two agencies cover the duties of striking staff - which GMB considers JJB Sports is planning to do - our legal advice is that the agencies will be breaking the law. The third agency, Light Year has an intermittent association and their staff should not be on site at all during the dispute."

2 The Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Business Regulations 2003 which came into force in April 2004. Part ll General Obligations, regulation 7, 'restriction on providing work-seekers in industrial disputes' states:

….an employment business may not supply a temporary worker to a hirer to replace an individual taking part in an official strike or any other official industrial dispute. In addition, an employment business must not introduce or supply a work-seeker to do the work of someone who has been transferred by the hirer to perform the duties of the person on strike or taking industrial action. An employment business will have a legal defense to having acted in breach of this regulation if it does not know, or has no reasonable grounds for knowing, that official strike action is in progress.

Regulation 7(2) provides that this regulation applies to official strike Action.

If an agency or business has not complied with the regulations:

it can be sued for damages by anyone who suffers loss or injury as a result of that failure.
the DTI can initiate a criminal prosecution against it (the maximum penalty is a fine of up to £5,000 per offence) and a ten year ban.
any contractual term that contravenes the Regulations is unenforceable (though the remainder of the contract may still be enforceable).
This is in addition to the DTI's power to apply to an employment tribunal to have someone declared unsuitable to carry on, or be concerned with, an employment agency or business.

So this section of law probably applies to Royal Mail just needs to be proved.

[POSTMAN]

There's an LTB on this,if it happens at your place your'e to tell your branch.

[POSTMAN]

Dear Colleagues,

Use Of Agency Workers During The Postal Strike

We are aware that large numbers of agency workers have been brought into the Business to work in Royal Mail sites, prior to, and during strike days. At the beginning of the dispute, I wrote to the company and all employment agencies likely to provide staff to Royal Mail, to remind them of the restrictions on providing resource in industrial dispute situations as outlined in Regulation 7 of the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment 2003.

It would seem that Royal Mil is attempting to circumnavigate these regulations in the timing of agency deployment.

I can assure you that we are doing all that we can to restrict this practice and we will of course consider all options, including legal action.

In the meantime, I have written again to Manpower and Reed Agencies on specific reported cases and we will be making a formal complaint to the Agency Enforcement Inspectorate. In addition we have raised the matter with the Recruitment Employment Confederation.

We would ask that Branches keep us informed of such instances so that we can continue to raise these matters as appropriate. We would need precise details of these abuses so that our representations can be specific.


Thank you for your assistance in this matter.

Yours sincerely,


Billy Hayes

General Secretary