Yesterday's shock announcement at the lay-off of 850 agency workers at the Mini plant in Cowley demonstrates the precarious nature of the UK "flexible" labour market. Unite, the GPMU and TUC have campaigned for proper employment rights for agency workers to stop just this sort of thing happenning. Some of those who have been layed off with no redundancy pay and at an hours notice have worked as agency workers at the Cowley plant for years. Agency work was designed to cover short term problems, production peaks etc, however some companies used agency workers as a "replacement workforce". Sackable at a moments notice, no "troublesome" employment rights to worry about, such as hoilday pay, redundancy pay, sick pay, with an "if you don't like it you know where to go" attitude from management. We have seen a massive growth in the use of agency staff in the UK printing industry. Sometime back at a large print company (who will remain nameless because they reached a sensible agreement with us) a number of temporary staff joined the union after being employed for years without holidays, holiday pay, sick pay etc. After pressure from our union and reps we reached a deal to turn them into "flexible" bindery assisitants, on permanent contracts with the same rate of pay as permanent staff etc. It was a win - win situation. There are still large numbers of agency workers in the printing industry, mostly in print finishing working alongside permanent staff who must be wondering if it is their turn next. Only a few weeks ago I met a group of Unite reps from the printing industry and help set up an agency workers chapel at their company as many agency staff were choosing to join Unite. In the Unite - BPIF National Agreement we have a code of good practice in regard to agency and temporary workers, which provides for fair employment rights etc. Copies available to anyone who wants one from me. Some companies have adopted it - others choose to ignore it. However, as Unite said yesterday, the Agency Workers Directive has now been agreed in Europe and there is nothing to stop the UK Government from acting now to protect 1 million agency workers. Sadly, the UK government did all it could to drag its feet over implementation of the Directive and openly opposed EU legislation with the encourgament of the CBI and employers. And as was pointed out in the media, the dissmissals at Cowley could not have happened in France or Germany! Once again, sadly the Labour Government's negative attitude to employment rights, its embrace of the flexible labour market means that more chickens have again come home to roost.