By Michael Smith (Veshengro)
When local councils and county councils started to instigate the cut backs and made numbers of staff redundant they stated that they would not use any more agency staff..
This is not borne out by reality. In truth, it would appear that there are still at least as much, if not even more, agency staff.
Wherever we look it is not permanent council employees that work on the waste collections, in grounds maintenance, and other such services, but also in office support, there are agency workers.
Instead of savings agency staff is more expensive and it would be cheaper, as far as salaries are concerned, to employ those people directly and pay them directly. But agency workers do not have the same benefits as do permanent council workers; no pension and such like and they can also be “laid off” from one day to the next. Convenient in the extreme for employers, in this case the councils.
Trade unions do not seem to be taking much of a notice of this at all, not that that surprises me at all. Where is Unison and others? Conspicuous by their absence and their silence is rather deafening.
© 2011
