Temps at a Jaguar Land Rover plant claim a recruitment agency is bullying them into signing permanent contracts to avoid paying an extra £200 per week under the forthcoming Agency Worker Regulations.
According to the Liverpool Daily Post, Nottingham-based Staffline provides 686 workers for a DHL operation that supplies parts for the Land Rover Evoque and the Freelander 2 production line at the factory in Halewood.
But some of its workers have claimed that Staffline was trying to get around the new Regulations, which comes into force on 1 October, as they would result in some earning an extra £200 per week. The firm’s permanent contract would be worth a mere 15 pence more an hour or about £6 per week to most of them, however.
Staffline said that it had not considered giving the temps pay parity because its preferred option was to take them on as permanent staff. It claimed that its new ‘Pay Between Assignments’ contracts improved on workers’ current terms and conditions and were in compliance with the Regulations.
In a letter sent to personnel, Staffline reportedly said that the first 300 to sign up to its PBA contract would be offered a minimum of five day’s work per week, while the next 300 would get a minimum of only two days.
But the 200 additional staff who had been taken on to help with the launch of the Evoque would no longer be required by the end of the year, it added.
The news came as Jaguar Land Rover itself said that it planned to build a new £355 million engine plant in the West Midlands.
The factory, which will be based at the i54 business park – an enterprise zone in Wolverhampton – is expected to employ up to 2,000 workers and create a further 1,200 jobs in the supply chain and other secondary and tertiary industries.
