by René Lavanchy

DOWNING STREET and the TUC look set to reach an agreement on equal rights for temporary and agency workers.

News of the proposed deal,which is based on a 12-week qualification period, came as Gordon Brown announced that Business Secretary John Hutton will introduce a bill on agency workers “subject to an agreement between employers and employees, and in Europe” in next year’s Parliament.

Andrew Miller, Labour MP for Ellesmere Port & Neston, who introduced a Private Member’s Bill on the subject into the Commons, told Tribune he expected the measure to be immune to reversal if David Cameron’s Conservatives win the next election.

He said: “What’s being set… requires something that’s regarded as having the support of what’s happening on a pan-European basis and it has a life that can’t be terminated on the whim of an incoming government.”

Unions have been at loggerheads with the Government on how to apply the principle of giving temporary and agency workers equal pay and benefits to permanent staff, a Labour manifesto commitment.

After Mr Miller introduced his bill, ministers offered a commission to discuss the matter, but unions have – apparently successfully – resisted this, seeing it as a delaying tactic.

They will now need to agree a position with the Confederation of British Industry on the qualifying period for entitlement to equal treatment. The CBI has suggested a period of 12 months, but the latest offer from Government is for 12 weeks, while a draft directive from the European Commission offers a six-week qualifying period.

Mr Miller welcomed Mr Brown’s announcement as a sign that the Government was championing Labour values:

“It’s undoubtedly an issue where there’s very clear blue water between us and the Conservatives.”