The TUC has called for the British government to support the adoption of the new Agency Workers Directive ahead of a key meeting of the EU social affairs ministers on Wednesday(5 December).

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber, says: "There is a perfectly legitimate role for employment agencies in providing workers with short-term availability to employers with short-term needs.

"But too many unscrupulous bosses are replacing permanent staff - with reasonable terms and conditions - with insecure agency staff. They regularly earn less than directly employed staff , are not allowed to benefit from an employer's contributions to a pension scheme, are given less holiday, little if any access to training, and tend to get no contractual sick pay. There is a new underclass of temps who cannot get permanent work and who have no loyalty to their employers.

But there is a simple solution to this problem - the Directive, which most of the EU is now backing, could give UK temps new rights to equal treatment from the first day they are taken on.

"Agency workers have been vulnerable to real injustice for far too long."