According to Ucatt, the rules state that employers should not expect employees to buy their own Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and should supply it for them.
However, the agencies respond that agency workers have made the choice to be self-employed, making them their own employer and so responsible for their own PPE.
Ucatt wants the Health & Safety Executive to take action on the matter.
UCATT executive council member Dennis Doody raised the issue at yesterday’s meeting of CONIAC (the HSE’s Construction Industry Advisory Committee). He said: “Increasingly UCATT officials are finding that agencies are forcing workers to supply their own PPE. This is against safety regulations and given growing concerns about fake and counterfeit PPE, being available in the construction industry, places already vulnerable workers at greater risk of injury.”
Mr Doody named several well-known agencies where this had been an issue but identified Bespoke Recruitment in particular, which is run by Simon Noakes, chairman of the Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC) construction group. Mr Noakes has previously claimed that REC, the trade association for employment agencies, has “a specific focus on the health and safety of the flexible workforce”.
Despite Mr Noakes’ concern for health and safety, many of the jobs advertised on his company’s website have a requirement for applicants to have PPE, Mr Doody said.
Mr Doody added: “REC claim that they take safety seriously, however until senior people in that organisation begin to follow safety regulations themselves, then construction workers will need to take these pledges with a very large pinch of salt.”
UCATT is seeking assurances from the HSE that inspectors conducting safety inspections will ensure that PPE is being freely supplied and that special focus is applied to agency workers.
Safety regulations established in 1992 clearly state: “Personal Protective Equipment is to be supplied and used at work wherever there are risks to health and safety that cannot be adequately controlled in other ways” and “an employer cannot ask for money from an employee for PPE, whether it is returnable or not.”
Invited by The Construction Index to respond, Mr Noakes sent us a statement from the REC’s director of policy and professional services, Tom Hadley.
Mr Hadley said: “Claims made by UCATT today seem to have missed the point that many people working in construction are self-employed and, under the current regulations, would be expected to provide their own PPE along with the tools of their trade. In a demand-led industry like construction, being self-employed, for the vast majority of the workforce, is a matter of choice.”
He added: “The REC and its dedicated construction group are more than happy to meet with Ucatt and discuss how to promote health and safety regulations to the industry.”
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