Unite has launched a national campaign 'Play by the rules' to police the key agreements on every site in the UK at its national meeting of key union representatives from the industry.

The union has learned that employers are increasingly cherry picking the parts of the agreements that suit them while ignoring the rules that don't, resulting in workers not receiving the correct rates of pay and other terms and conditions as well as the widespread use of agency labour.

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Bernard McAulay, Unite national officer, said: "Unite will no longer stand by and accept some employers ignoring the rules that protect our members. In particular, we will challenge employers who are not complying with the rules around agency labour.

"The agreements state quite clearly that employers should make every effort to offer jobs on a directly employed basis and it is unacceptable that employers are flouting this and bringing insecurity and casualisation to the industry."

The launch of the campaign follows a disagreement during pay talks with

the ECA and SELECT who are stalling on entering into negotiations on the JIB/SJIB.

Both the ECA and SELECT are refusing to meet with the democratically elected Unite negotiating team.

Unite is giving notice to all the major employers in the mechanical and electrical sector that it intends to use the full procedures of all the agreements to enforce compliance.

(CD)