CWU Agency Campaign - Closing the Loopholes

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Letter to Branches No. 493/12
Ref: SB/kc
Date: 29 June 2012


To All Branches


Dear Colleague

CWU Agency Campaign - Closing the Loopholes

At this years annual conference there were motions carried at the General and Telecoms Conference calling on the Union to mount a campaign to oppose the new agency contracts that deliberately exempt agency workers from the provision of equal treatment on pay

These Pay Between Assignment contracts (PBA's) has now created a new tier of agency worker and whilst the contracts have been opposed by the CWU to both the hirer (BT) and the employer (Manpower) they are legal and are clearly permissible within the Agency Regulations

Therefore the scope of the campaign will need to be both internal and external.

Agency Campaign Team

The CWU has set up a National Agency Campaign Team which will be led by the Officer and TFSE members from the Agency and BT Retail Teams. It will also be supported by the Comms and Research Department

Campaign Theme

The new campaign will follow on from the hugely successful Eurotrashed 'Justice for Agency Workers' campaign but have a new theme, new image and a new name.

The campaign will be called 'Closing the Loopholes' and a new logo has been designed to support the campaign and give it its own identity.

There is a major article in this month’s Voice which will give branches a flavour of the new theme.

Aims and Objectives

The Agency Campaign Team has agreed the following aims and objectives:

To secure amendments to the UK Agency Regulations which close current loopholes that currently enable hirers and employment agencies to exploit agency workers.

To raise the profile of agency issues amongst the CWU membership and to encourage our agency members to become active in the campaign.

To raise awareness at a political level and to secure support in order that this issue is brought back on to the political agenda.

To engage and work with the TUC/UNI to make this a wider trade union issue.

To give consideration to challenging the UK Agency Regulations within the European Commission.

Branches

The involvement of the branches will be integral to the success of this campaign and more importantly the participation of agency members that are actually affected by these contracts. We would therefore ask branches to start raising the awareness amongst our agency members and try and get them to become more involved.

Agency Forum

Regular updates will be given to branches on how the campaign is developing and various initiatives it is adopting. We will also be arranging an Agency Forum in September to directly brief you on the campaign.

Any queries to be addressed to Sally Bridge, Assistant Secretary, at sabridge@cwu.org.

Yours sincerely

Sally Bridge
Assistant Secretary