Yesterday I sent this letter to a range of trade union general secretaries in an attempt to urge them to hold firm in negotiations with Gordon Brown on the Agency Workers Bill to be debated in Parliament today. This Bill is the least the Government could do to prevent the exploitation of some of the most vulnerable workers in our society. I urge all trade unionists to do all they can to ensure that their union maintains the pressure for action on the Government otherwise we will lose the opportunity for another decade.
"Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Re: Agency Workers Bill
I am writing on the eve of the debate on the Agency Workers Bill. I understand from Andrew Miller MP that trade union general secretaries are meeting the Prime Minister on Monday to discuss the issue of agency workers in the light of the progress this Bill.
I fully support the Bill and I am confident that we can marshall sufficient forces tomorrow to secure a second reading of the Bill.
As you will be aware from various talks and media briefings, it is clear that as a result of lobbying by the CBI the Prime Minister is seeking to establish a commission of inquiry to examine the need for legislation involving representatives from the CBI and TUC.
I am firmly of the view that the need for legislation to protect agency and temporary workers has already been proved and that there has been too long a delay by the Government in acting to protect these vulnerable workers. For this reason I believe the proposal to establish a commission should be rejected and the Prime Minister should be urged to move swiftly to legislation using the Miller private members bill as the basis for this legislation.
However if the Prime Minister remains intransigent and insists upon establishing a commission I would urge that as a minimum condition the commission must be set up and report during the period in which the Parliamentary Bill Committee considering the Miller Bill is sitting so that any amendments to the Bill resulting from the commissions’ deliberations could be taken at report stage of the Bill and that Royal Assent to the Bill should be guaranteed by the end of the current session, that is no later than October this year. In addition the terms of reference of any commission must reflect that the contents of the Miller Bill are the absolute minimum acceptable to the Labour and trade union movement.
If the Prime Minister refuses to accept this compromise approach we should proceed with the Bill as far as possible through its Parliamentary stages, whilst mounting a ferocious campaign throughout our movement and within the wider community calling Ministers and MPs to account.
Yours,
John
McDonnell MP"
8 Comments:
Politicians are going to protect us from the market -but who is going to protect us from politicians? Most of them are are on the take.
If we had less politicans sucking us dry with taxes we'd have more take home pay. You are not the solution,you are the problem!
Actaully the agency workers Bill has got through to have a second reading - this is a victoy for us at long last though of course it's not over yet but let's build on this. The Brownites dodgy commission idea was outvoted - we don't need another timewasting comission as the case for the legislation is already proved; i.e. teh parties involved the trade unions, temps and agency workers tehmselves and the decent part of the Labour party have already consulted on this - anyone can easily find this out if you look into the process of how these things are done. They can't pull teh wool over people's eyes much longer! (perhaps we shold call for a commission on all these commissions...!!)
I think the tide might just start turning in our favour at last - Obama is so popular in the US because he is against all the c**p like dodgy commissions so let's hope we can see the light here and follow in his footsteps. Ther is much debate on whether he can deliver but thsi misses teh point made on BBC News 24 today that Americans are deeply fed up with the world hating their country after what Bush as done to it so they are unlikey to fall for the "experience" argument again. He is a senator after all not someone who has just entered politics. Also JFK was previously a senator and didn't have avery distinguished record in the Senate in fact.
The Cuban situation is also interesting as at least it may bring more discussion of teh whole concept of socialism though we must take pains to distinguish socialism from Communism - I've studied it so I'm aware but perhaps John woudl blog on this as I think memeories of Soviet stylr communism are still putting peoel off voting at all left wards here when of course socilaism is not run by eleites and dictators or acquisitional of land.
It's actually a bit stupid to say all poiliticians are teh problemn as somebody has to run things unless we want no roads, houses etc for everyone to share adn politicians press for things to be run in the way that they think benefits teh most people (or a rich elite in the case of the Tory party!)....we have a lot of work to do raising the standard of public debate about poliitcs in this country. The gap between rich adn poor is now so wide we must stop the poor from unwitting voting for those who actually oppress thier interests; it's like turkeys voting for Christmas to vote Tory/New Labour!
apologies for above bad typing -wobbly keyboard shelf (now better) didn't help and haven't always got as much time as someone in an office. However it does seem to always print even more typos than I've corrected so I see why John is having trouble - is it an occupational hazard of these websites that more typos seem to happen as I can actually type though not at great speed or anything??!! I will have to type very very slowly and look down at the keyboard though I don't normally need to!
Hi John,
I read that the bill is passed, but that there might be delays and wrangling over implementation and the government is attempting sabotage.
As a low paid agency worker myself - I declare an interest!
When is this going to be implemented?
It will be a (verbal!) fight to get it first made into law and then implemented because basically the leadership are against true Labour values or they would have passed this years ago.
However we have to keep banging away and holding them to their word and eventually we will win as common sense and the majority are on our side. Take no notice of the scaremongering that jobs will be lost as there are a million agency workers in the country; some of them are truly "temps" in that they won't stay in the agency jobs as they have something else planned for later but many are only temps because they are made to be; such as people who have been "temporary" secretaries for over a year at the same company - in the old days they would be offred permanent work if staying that long - now both types of temp need decent pay and conditions as it's all the work they can get and often has very little prospects.
On the bright side once such legislation is implemented it is easier to build on rather like a precedent in law - the minimum wage for example is unlikey to be turned back now so hopefully we can only go forward on this theme. If we can get a Bill then the legoslation is usually enacted quite quickly as was for example the improvements to worker's rights.
I find fighting for these sorts of things is a vocation really - it will be with you for the rest of your life!
For your personal situation blogger above see www.worksmart.org.uk from the TUC if you need any advice on low pay etc/agency work..
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