Home > Job News > Gap Year/Temporary > Unite lobbies MPs over temp work < Job News and Info

The union Unite has lobbied Parliament today to ask the MPs to get behind the Agency Workers Bill which will give students doing temp work some of the same rights that permanent members of staff enjoy.

Unite says that the Agency Workers Bill can guarantee equal rights for people choosing to take up temporary work and stop widespread abuses of the 1.4 million agency workers in the UK.

However, CBI's deputy director-general, John Cridland disagreed, saying: "Union attempts to lump all temporary workers under the category of 'vulnerable' simply do not wash. Temps have a wide range of employment rights covering working time, paid holiday, national minimum wage, health and safety and discrimination and many are well paid."

He added that there is a "world of difference" between the people who choose to take on temporary work to fit with other responsibilities or as a step towards a permanent job and those "denied rights by their employer".

In order for the bill to be passed it needs the support of more than 100 MPs and it will be decided upon on February 22nd.

Recent figures from the TUC revealed that almost half of people doing temporary work are paid less than people who doing the same job permanently and 70 per cent of them did not have equal access to pension schemes.

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