Labour Research April 2013

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Law Queries

Agency workers

Q. My employer is engaged in outsourcing services to the private sector and this is resulting in TUPE transfers and redundancies across the whole workforce. In the collective consultation over these changes, we want to find out about our employer’s use of agency workers. What are our rights?

A. Since 1 October 2011, the union is entitled to information about your employer’s use of agency workers. The source of this right is Regulation 13 of the Agency Workers Regulations (AWR).

You are entitled to information on:

• the number of agency workers working temporarily for and under your employer’s supervision and direction;

• the parts of the business where they are working; and • the type of work they are doing.

Public sector union UNISON won an important tribunal victory enforcing this duty against London’s Barnet Council earlier this year.

Barnet supplied only incomplete information, and even then only reluctantly, after several requests from the union. The tribunal made three separate protective awards of between 30 and 60 days’ pay.

Although the case, Unison v (1) London Borough of Barnet and (2) NSL Limited Case No. 3302128/2012 (unreported) is only a first instance decision (and so not binding), it is very important, especially as it is probably the first time the rights have been litigated.


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