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Reed Welcomes Flexibility For Local Workers in Loughborough
Posted on 12/06/2008
Loughborough MP Andy Reed has welcomed news that the Employment Council in Luxembourg have reached agreement on the draft Agency Workers Directive and the draft Directive on Working Time – which is good news for local workers in Loughborough.
The agreement provides a fair deal for workers, who can continue to work longer hours and earn overtime if they wish. It also hugely valuable to the British economy and means businesses can cope during busy times.
The UK’s flexible labour market has one of the highest levels of job creation in Europe, along with a framework of rights like the National Minimum Wage, maternity and paternity pay and leave, 24-days holidays and strong health and safety provisions to protect all workers.
The Loughborough MP Andy Reed said: “This is very good news for workers in Loughborough. It provides a fair deal for workers, without damaging Britain’s economic competitiveness or putting jobs at risk. This agreement means that people remain free to earn overtime and businesses can cope during busy times.
“Securing the right for people to work longer if they choose to do so is hugely valuable to the British economy. Flexible working is one of the reasons we have record employment levels in the UK, and I am also pleased there is extra support for agency workers, as agency work also provides an important route back to work for the unemployed.
“It is worth remembering that while the Labour Government is increasing protection for agency workers – the Tories’ spokesman Alan Duncan says these moves are ‘misguided and unnecessary’. I think that local workers deserve protecting and to be given positive choices concerning their own futures.”
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Background Information
The new Working Time Directive means:
• That British workers can still sign an ‘opt-out’ agreement so they can work more than 48-hours if they choose;
• Extra flexibility has been built in for workers on short term contracts. Workers on short-term contracts don’t have to wait to sign the opt out.
• New protections for workers including ‘cooling off’ period of six months after people sign the opt-out to change their minds.
• The Working Time Directive will not impact on the UK’s successful system for prioritising parents and carers in the right to request flexible working.
• The updated deal on working time clarifies the position of "on-call" workers, whose "on-call" time until now has been deemed to count entirely as working time. The new deal distinguishes between "active" on-call time, which counts towards the maximum working week, and "inactive" working time - such as an uninterrupted nights sleep while on call - which does not.
• A cap has been agreed on the maximum working week for opted-out workers of 60 hours, averaged out over a three month period, called a reference period, to accommodate peaks in working during that time.
• The three month reference period means that workers on short term contracts of ten weeks or less can choose to work longer than 60 hours a week in order to earn enough money to support themselves during parts of the year when they are not working. For example, people working in entertainment or at sporting events that sometimes require intense periods of work for short periods.
Workers on longer contracts have the flexibility of a longer reference period, with the time for calculating an average week’s work set at six months.
Agency Workers Directive
The agreement on agency working represents a fair deal for agency workers while retaining the important flexibility for businesses to hire staff for short-term and seasonal contracts or during busy times:
• The deal on agency workers follows a joint declaration signed by the CBI and TUC last month agreeing to a 12-week qualifying period for agency workers to be given equal treatment with permanent staff.
• Equal treatment means at least the basic working and employment conditions that would apply if the worker had been recruited to occupy the same job as a permanent member of staff. That means pay, holidays, overtime, breaks, rest periods, night work and duration of working time. It does not cover occupational security schemes.
Many agency workers choose this type of work for a variety of reasons. Research suggests a large proportion of people work in agencies by choice