Agencies and Industrial Disputes

[another one]

An OLD article on this subject but it might soon be relevant again


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With the recent dispute between Royal Mail and the Communications Workers Union (the CWU) affecting so many businesses and individuals, it is easy to

assume that the option of using agency workers to clear the backlog of post delayed by the strike was a sensible one. However, the situation is never as straightforward as it seems and, the allegation that Royal Mail planned to use 30,000 agency workers to cover the work of staff who were on strike resulted in the CWU issuing proceedings against Royal Mail in the High Court.

Fortunately, Royal Mail and the CWU agreed to suspend strike action over the Christmas period and so injunction proceedings were avoided. However, the dispute certainly highlighted the tricky legal situation surrounding the use of agency workers in circumstances where there is an official strike taking place.

The use of workers supplied by an employment agency is governed by the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Business Regulations 2003 (the Regulations). Regulation 7 makes it clear that employment businesses (those agencies who provide clients with temporary workers) are prohibited from providing agency workers to clients to replace individuals taking part in an official strike or official industrial action, or to replace individuals who have themselves been transferred by the client to perform duties of the person on strike or taking industrial action.

Accordingly, any agency who supplied temporary workers to Royal Mail during the strike in breach of the Regulations, was, on the face of it, committing a criminal offence.

Ignorance of the Regulations is no defence. In fact, the only defence permissible in the Regulations is if the employment business can demonstrate that it did not know and did not have reasonable grounds to know that official action was taking place. However, in view of the enormous publicity surrounding the recent postal strike, it is difficult to imagine any agency acting as an employment business being able to successfully argue that defence.

Enforcement of the Regulations falls under the scope of the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate (the Inspectorate), which is part of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. One of the Inspectorate’s aims is to ensure compliance with employment legislation and so, if a complaint is made, the Inspectorate may carry out its own investigations which may include undertaking inspections of and/or visiting any agency.

Accordingly, it may be of concern to some agencies that one of the biggest unions, the GMB, set up a telephone hotline to enable members of the public to report the names of those agencies who were supplying staff to Royal Mail in the recent postal dispute. The general secretary of the GMB has already written to the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills to request that the Inspectorate investigates and enforces the Regulations. No doubt the GMB will continue to provide the Secretary of State with information on those agencies it believes are breaching the Regulations by supplying workers during any further strike action that takes place.

Investigations could take a matter of months, but if the Inspectorate finds that an agency has breached the Regulations then the agency could face a fine of up to £5,000 per offence and potentially a ten year ban from acting as an employment business. In addition, for the most serious breaches of the Regulations, the maximum penalty could be an unlimited fine.

To date, no successful prosecution has taken place under Regulation 7, but in view of the high profile nature of this dispute, the Inspectorate could come in for criticism if it is seen to do nothing in response to the breaches that have allegedly taken place.

With that in mind, agencies who supply temporary workers may want to reconsider whether to do so during official strikes or industrial action, as it could prove to be costly. Which agency would actually want the notoriety of being the first agency to face prosecution in what would inevitably be a high profile case? Adequate checks should be made by agency staff to avoid this risk arising, as turning a blind eye to the fact that workers being supplied will be covering for striking workers is not to be recommended.

[another one]

The use of workers supplied by an employment agency is governed by the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Business Regulations 2003 (the Regulations). Regulation 7 makes it clear that employment businesses (those agencies who provide clients with temporary workers) are prohibited from providing agency workers to clients to replace individuals taking part in an official strike or official industrial action, or to replace individuals who have themselves been transferred by the client to perform duties of the person on strike or taking industrial action.

Accordingly, any agency who supplied temporary workers to Royal Mail during the strike in breach of the Regulations, was, on the face of it, committing a criminal offence.

Ignorance of the Regulations is no defence. In fact, the only defence permissible in the Regulations is if the employment business can demonstrate that it did not know and did not have reasonable grounds to know that official action was taking place

[markadam1962]

Seeing how we have been aware that Angard ARE Royal Mail can you be guilty of supplying agency workers to yourself?

[Bazza01]

Seeing how we have been aware that Angard ARE Royal Mail can you be guilty of supplying agency workers to yourself?

As I understand it angard are in house and therefore exempt so it would be down to angard workers if they are prepared to cross the picket line.

[ennabee]

Seeing how we have been aware that Angard ARE Royal Mail can you be guilty of supplying agency workers to yourself?

As I understand it angard are in house and therefore exempt so it would be down to angard workers if they are prepared to cross the picket line.

Angard are owned by RM does that make just a part of RM?
If Angard are "in house" and "exempt" why are Angardees covered by AWR regulations unlike the pre-Angard RM "in house" casuals who were not, and who were paid the minimum wage.

Also Angard have the right to choose, within reason, who works when RM request workers, just like an outside Agency, and Angard have challenged the right of RM managers to invite people for shifts independently.

[Bazza01]

Seeing how we have been aware that Angard ARE Royal Mail can you be guilty of supplying agency workers to yourself?

As I understand it angard are in house and therefore exempt so it would be down to angard workers if they are prepared to cross the picket line.

Angard are owned by RM does that make just a part of RM?
If Angard are "in house" and "exempt" why are Angardees covered by AWR regulations unlike the pre-Angard RM "in house" casuals who were not, and who were paid the minimum wage.

Also Angard have the right to choose, within reason, who works when RM request workers, just like an outside Agency, and Angard have challenged the right of RM managers to invite people for shifts independently.

The new laws only took effect from 2011 so the previous royal mail casuals who were all on temporary contracts were told to sign up with angard. As they are owned by royal mail angard will not be breaking the rules by supplying staff unlike say manpower. As the unions are only planning 24 hour strikes I am not sure we will be asked as it is bound to make matters worse with the union.

[ennabee]

As they are owned by royal mail angard will not be breaking the rules by supplying staff unlike say manpower..

If Angard are not breaking the rules by supplying staff during a dispute why are they keeping to the AWR regulations as if they are a separate entity? In-house casual staff are exempt from AWR so why would they pay £11 when they could get away with £6.19?

[markadam1962]

If you work for Angard are you prepared to cross the picket line? I think it would boil down to Don't cross the picket line if your asked to work a shift and never work for Royal mail again.

[another one]

It boils down to... are Angard "in house?" They certainly only have have one customer (that owns them!) but they are separate legal entity and presumably invoice RM for their services.

If RM just wanted to keep casuals in house but centralize the mangement of them, they could have set up a department at at HQ rather than use a Ltd. company they had already set up.

[ennabee]

If you work for Angard are you prepared to cross the picket line? I think it would boil down to Don't cross the picket line if your asked to work a shift and never work for Royal mail again.

I dont think they'll ask us for the reasons stated by Bazza.

[Verging]

It boils down to... are Angard "in house?" They certainly only have have one customer (that owns them!) but they are separate legal entity and presumably invoice RM for their services.

If RM just wanted to keep casuals in house but centralize the mangement of them, they could have set up a department at at HQ rather than use a Ltd. company they had already set up.

RM already had in house casuals prior to Angard and they moved us to Angard. RM did the management of their casuals, paid them, took them on, etc.. There could be a multitude of reasons why Angard was created and we all got moved to Angard.

[Verging]

We had a meeting, at our MC, with an Angard representative recently and we were told they could not and will not supply additional workers as a result of any strike because of the above regulations.

[Bazza01]

We had a meeting, at our MC, with an Angard representative recently and we were told they could not and will not supply additional workers as a result of any strike because of the above regulations.

They should have meetings at every MC not just about the possible strike issue but things in general such as why they continue to employ more staff which are clearly not needed as many of us can go weeks without work.

[Verging]

We had a meeting, at our MC, with an Angard representative recently and we were told they could not and will not supply additional workers as a result of any strike because of the above regulations.

They should have meetings at every MC not just about the possible strike issue but things in general such as why they continue to employ more staff which are clearly not needed as many of us can go weeks without work.

The meeting was a general meeting - the topic came up as part of that meeting.

We have had 2 meetings now, at our MC, in the years Angard have been managing/mismanaging the casuals. Nothing like what was promised in our original Angard contracts or letter telling us about being transferred to them (something about an Angard representative on site who we can discuss things with anytime).