The Royal Mail will need to prove that additional temporary workers who are hired are not there to perform the duties of workers out on strike, according to law firm Blake Lapthorn.

Royal Mail says that it is recruiting up to 30,000 fully vetted temporary workers, doubling the number of people Royal Mail would normally hire.

In a statement, Royal Mail stressed that the recruitment drive is not to recruit staff to do postmen’s work when they are out on strike but “to make sure that we have people to help clear any backlogs between strikes as well as to help ­ as happens every year ­ with the seasonal build up of mail in the run up to Christmas”, adding that “the recruitment is, of course, fully in line with all employment law”.

Law firm Blake Lapthorn told Recruiter that should unions take legal action, the Royal Mail will need to prove that its action does not contravene the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003. This regulation attempts to prohibit the supply of classic temps by staffing companies in a strike situation. Regulation 7 says:

Restriction on providing work-seekers in industrial disputes

(1)     Subject to paragraph (2) an employment business shall not introduce or supply a work-seeker to a hirer to perform—

(a)     the duties normally performed by a worker who is taking part in a strike or other industrial action (“the first worker”), or

(b)     the duties normally performed by any other worker employed by the hirer and who is assigned by the hirer to perform the duties normally performed by the first worker,

unless in either case the employment business does not know, and has no reasonable grounds for knowing, that the first worker is taking part in a strike or other industrial action.

(2)     Paragraph (1) shall not apply if, in relation to the first worker, the strike or other industrial action in question is an unofficial strike or other unofficial industrial action for the purposes of section 237 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992.

Kevin Barrow, partner at Blake Lapthorn, told Recruiter: “They are not there to perform the duties of the striking workers. They will argue that the workers are coming into clear backlog services. Backlog services is not a normal part of a strikng worker’s job.

“Royal Mail may also argue that the temps they hire are not being engaged as agency workers, that the Royal Mail is not contracting with a staffing company that is contracting with the workers. Instead they may argue that they are engaging them directly.”

Recruiter contacted both Royal Mail labour suppliers Manpower and Reed, but had not heard back from either at time of press.