Skip to content

Can\’t get something for nothing

Unpublished research from a leading business group shows that one in five employers is planning to cut their use of temporary workers to avoid costly new legislation, which they believe will drown the UK\’s flexible temping industry.

There are always trade offs.

Those who argued for an extension of thse \”workers\’ rights\”.

Well done, you\’ve just managed to create fewer workers to enjoy those rights.

8 thoughts on “Can\’t get something for nothing”

  1. Less competition for full-time members of trade unions, who heavily lobby and sponsor the Labour Party and various political ‘charities’.

    Result for them, I’d say. They also get to blame the Tories for higher unemployment.

  2. How do you mean ‘fewer workers’? Won’t the employers still need the labour input that they were paying for?

    If so, where will they get it from? I guess more efficiency, which employers should embrace instead of moaning. Otherwise where?

  3. Doug,

    If so, where will they get it from? I guess more efficiency, which employers should embrace instead of moaning. Otherwise where?

    India and The Phillipines, off the top of my head. Friend of mine hires a graphic designer in the Phillipines – pays them less than one of similar skill here and has none of the employment law stuff to deal with.

    In some cases, temps are hired to do things like cover maternity leave. Because that can now be as long as a year, you’ll have people getting maternity leave covering maternity leave, or companies will have to be spending time retraining staff every couple of months.

  4. Rob 9:09 – indeed.

    The rights being protected are those of the full-time unionised workers, who will now have more chance to put pressure on their employers one way and another.

    The rights of those others, who broadly speaking are not union members, simply don’t count.

    Nothing new here, really, except that a so-called conservative-led government is letting it happen, under the goading of the EU.

    God I hate them all.

  5. The new burdens are applicable after 12 weeks aren’t they? So the employers only need to reduce the contract term, to stay under the threshold of compliance. It will mean that temps employment prospects will become even more precarious.

  6. How do you mean ‘fewer workers’? Won’t the employers still need the labour input that they were paying for?

    Not necessarily, other options are:
    – Replace with capital investment
    – Fail to expand
    – Cut what they offer (eg smaller product range, move towards a lower-service offering).

  7. It’s simple protectionism, no different to imposing a tariff on the import of goods, by forcing up the price of the imported temporary labour they are making it more attractive to ‘buy British’.

    I wonder how many of those poor exploited Eastern European workers will thanks the unions for caring so much about them?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *