ANGARD STAFFING SOLUTIONS LIMITED

[POSTMAN]

TO: ALL BRANCHES WITH POSTAL MEMBERS

Latest news at 1320 on Wednesday 21 September 2011

Dear Colleague

ANGARD STAFFING SOLUTIONS LIMITED

The purpose of this LTB is to advise Postal Branches that a new company, namely Angard Staffing Solutions, has been set up to provide the Royal Mail Group with their own internal casual/agency workforce.

The new company is registered at Companies House as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Royal Mail Group.

This development raises a number of important issues for the Union and we have told the Royal Mail Group that we want to engage in urgent and proper discussions to fully understand all the possible implications of this development.

The company has agreed to meet the Union and has initially told us that whilst Angard is owned by the Royal Mail Group, recruitment of casual and agency staff will still be undertaken through the Reed Employment Agency. The RMG has stated that the rationale for this development is that it is a more tax efficient way of employing casual labour. They claim this is common practice in many companies.

However, the Union is aware that this may also be linked to the new European Agency Workers’ Directive which becomes law in October 2011. The advice we have received suggests that by taking this step Royal Mail may exempt themselves from the new law and the benefit this provides for agency workers.

As part of understanding the full implications of this new arrangement, the Union will be seeking written assurances covering the intended use of this casual labour resource, the numbers involved and the potential impact on existing staff. We will also want to consider whether or not this provides an opportunity to recruit and negotiate on behalf of agency workers in the future.

We will advise you of further developments in due course.

Any enquiries on the content of this LTB to the DGS (P) Dept.

Yours sincerely

Dave Ward
Deputy General Secretary (P)

[fishtank]

From October when the AWR kicks in Royal Mail will have to pay agency staff the same rate of pay as permanent staff after 12 weeks.
If these agency staff become permanent employees directly employed by Angard Staffing they will effectively no longer be Agency Staff,not protected by the Agency Workers Regulations and Angard be responsible for setting the pay levels of their own staff effectively undercutting the rest of us.
Another issue will be the length of these "permanent" contracts which could be as little as 4hrs which means that you may spend all week sitting by the phone waiting for a call that never comes an take home £25.
This is very,very bad news.
I'm not buying the tax efficient bollocks...this is the start of the casualisation of Royal Mail.
If ever there was a fight worth fighting this is it.

[not me]

so Agency staff can expect work in (max)12 weeks blocks i assume
recession is a gift to employers with this level of morals