Unite wins groundbreaking victory for agency workers

The case, Kalwak & others v Consistent, will have important implications for thousands of agency workers and the agencies who employ them, some of whom evade paying holiday pay, sick pay or pension rights by classing their workers as self-employed. The judgement was made after Consistent had appealed against the original Employment Appeals Tribunal decision.

Unite has been pursuing the case against Consistent since the members, who worked at Welsh Country Foods in Winsford in Cheshire, were evicted from their accommodation following dismissal in 2005. The ruling enables Unite to take the workers’ case to the next stage to claim for unfair dismissal and victimisation of trade union activities. The group of Polish workers had recently become organised into the union, as part of the drive to organise workers throughout the food processing industry.

In a damning indictment of the behaviour of the agency concerned, the tribunal chairman summarised the case:

“….I noted the frequency with which the first respondents in the documents sought to emphasize the absence of rights – holiday pay, fringe benefits, the right to complain of unfair dismissal. These were their real concern. They in practice retained a firm measure of effective control over the claimants’ working lives. They told them when and where they had to work, they might deny them days off, they provided them with transport and accommodation (taken away, as it proved, without notice). They ensured further economy in the claimants’ employment by charging them for domestic services that were not provided. Here were seekers after work who could not adequately speak English, newly arrived here, for whom any purported freedom to work or not work, to work for more than one employer, were unreal. They were discouraged from union membership. The first respondents wanted to constrain them so as to retain them as compliant people through whom they could meet the demands of their clients. But they did not want people with expensive and troublesome rights.” (full quotation in Notes to Editors)

Tony Woodley, joint general secretary of Unite, said: “This judgement is an unequivocal statement on the employment rights of agency workers. There are thousands and thousands of workers across Britain who are subject to appalling treatment because of agency exploitation of their vulnerability, and this judgement has blown their so-called ‘self-employed’ status out of the water.

“The case highlights the ‘race to the bottom’ on wages and conditions in Britain’s workplaces that is allowing unscrupulous employers to take advantage of the worst aspects of the flexible labour market. Employment agencies and government should take heed from this case and act now to end further abuses.”