Solidarity Federation Experience of Action Against Employment Agencies.

As employment agencies have expanded in Britain the Solidarity Federation (SF) has been involved in a number of struggles against them.

Several years ago are Norwich SF group was approached by immigrant workers employed by an agency to work in a vegetable processing factory. As well as being paid disgusting wages they were being charged for the use of safety equipment and were being charged extortionate rates for transport to and from work by the agency. As immigrant workers fearful of the sack they approached SF for help.

At first the SF group picketed the factory handing out leaflets informing workers of their rights and protesting at conditions within the factory. This tactic brought little response from the agency. Having researched the company we discovered that a large proportion of the vegetables processed by the factory were destined the largest super market company in Britain, a company called TESCO. The SF began to picket TESCO stores handing out leaflets to customers stating that the vegetables sold in the shops were produced by slave labour. Highly conscious of it’s image TESCO threatened to end its contract with the processing factory unless conditions in the factor improved. This forced the employment agency to back down and improve the pay and conditions their workers.

The SF has also been involved in the Justice for Simon Jones Campign”. This campaign was started after Simon was killed while working on the docks in Brighton. He had been employed by an agency and sent to work at the docks as a temporary worker. Before starting work he was given no safety training and was provided with no safety equipment. Within two hour of starting work on the docks he was killed when a crane cut off his head.

The Government body charged with overseeing health and safety in the workplace showed little interest in the case, even though the employment agency and the company which owned the docks, were in clear breach of health and safety laws. A group of Simons friends started a campaign, which SF later supported.

From the outset the campaign was based on direct action. The employment agency, the docks and Government offices were occupied on a number of occasions. Also on several occasions protesters blocked the roads outside of government offices. The campaign received widespread national media coverage. In the end the government were forced to bring charges of corporate murder against the company that owned the docks. One of the few time this has happened in Britain. Though the court failed to find the company director guilty the campaign is still going on with pickets of employment agencies across Britain taking place on April 24th. (See attachment for more information).

The campaign produced a poignant video as part of the campaign. If sections are interested we could try to send copies of the video.

The SF was also involved in supporting care workers in the North of England. The care workers were sacked after striking against proposals to privatise the nursing home where they work. After a number of weeks on strike the council (local government) brought in scabs which they had hired from an employed agency. Strikers and supporters occupied the agency office until a guarantee was received that the employment agency would no longer provide workers to act as scabs to break the strike. Another agency was then bought in to provide scab workers, this time the agency had hired a restaurant to act as a base to hire scab workers. The restaurant was occupied forcing the employment agency to abandon its attempt to hire scab workers.

Finally SF members in Bristol are currently involved in a campaign against casualisation. See separate sheet for more information. Much of that campaign has been focussed on employment agencies.

As can be seen the SF has had some success against employment agencies as part of wider campaigns based on single issues such as a strike or death of a worker. However it has been much harder to generate interest in a wider general campaign against casualisation. As can be seen from the experience of the Bristol campign. This can partly be explained by the fact that the SF is only a tiny organisation if we were bigger it would be much easier to make a bigger impact. However, there are other problems related to a general campaign against casualisation. Those who work for agencies are often only seeking temporary work and are quite happy to put up with the poor pay and conditions in return for greater flexibility. Some estimates put the numbers who prefer to work as casual workers instead of seeking permanent employment as high as 40% of all agency workers, though little research has been done in this area. It is also the case that because it is so easy to sack agency workers, many are reluctant to get involved in campaigns for better conditions for fear of being sacked.

The other main problem relates to those workers in permanent jobs. Up until the 1970’s workplace trade union organisation was that strong that the permanent workforce would not have tolerated the wholesale use of agency workers. However since the smashing of workers organisation by Thatcher in the 1980’s workers have been largely unable to resist the use of temporary workers short term contracts etc as a means to undermine conditions. This makes it difficult to organise a general fight back against casulisation amongst permanent workers.

Despite these problem we still feel that it is essential that SF to begin to struggle against the effects of casualisation and its use by capitalism to drive down pay and conditions in the search for ever greater profit.