Barnet Unison, a trade union for Barnet council workers and outsourced services, announced that amid strike action, its mental health social workers received an email earlier from the director of adult social care stating that he had engaged the services of agency workers supplied by Flex 360.

Barnet Unison mental health strikers are due to start the next phase of strike action on Monday 15 April. Strikers have already taken 27 days of strike action and by the end of this next phase they will have taken 72 days of strike. The strike action relates to a recruitment and retention payment to reduce staff turnover and patient waiting lists.

The use of agency workers by an employer during industrial action is unlawful.

Last year, the High Court in London ruled that the UK government’s agency worker regulations are unlawful, after a successful legal challenge by 13 trade unions, including Unison. The High Court ruled that the legislation which allows employers to use agency workers to replace those on strike, was unlawful, unfair, and irrational.

Unison said it has written to Barnet council chief executive asking him to advise the director of adult social care to withdraw from this ‘ill-advised course of action’.

“In 28 years of being a Barnet Unison rep I have never experienced the amount of anti-union rhetoric coming from senior management,” John Burgess, Branch Secretary, Barnet Unison, said. “Unison has reached out several times to offer to resolve the dispute only to be met with machismo style management which has no place in the workplace and especially a workplace which is now a labour-controlled council.”

“Our Unison family of 1.4 million members is right behind our strikers, furthermore news has just come in to say Unison Industrial Action Committee has increased strike pay to £70 per day, Burgess added. “My message to the council is stop the bullying and come back with an offer which our members would be prepared to accept.”

The union added that feedback from its members showed that they are furious at this “crude attempt to bully and intimidate them only days before they begin nine weeks of strike action over a 13-week period.”

Flex360, based in the UK, provides services focused on children’s social work services, adults’ social care services and interim recruitment.

SIA reached out to Flex360 and to its parent company, the RT Group, for comment. The RT Group lists itself as a member of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation who have also been invited to comment  RT Group brands include RT Social Care, RT Healthcare, RT Education and Flex360.

The REC has previously called for the government to abandon plans to end a longstanding ban on agency workers filling in for employees who are on strike.

A joint statement from the REC and the Trades Union Congress earlier this year in response to news that minister were resurrecting plans to end the agency worker ban, stated, “We both believe that using agency staff to cover strikes only prolongs and inflames the conflict between employers and their permanent staff. It also risks placing agency staff and recruitment businesses in the centre of often complicated and contentious disputes over which they have no control. Where a dispute occurs, the focus should instead be on negotiation and resolution to return to a normal service.”

When the joint statement was published, Neil Carberry, Chief Executive of the REC, said, “Agencies across the country have been clear that they do not want the law changed again. The ban on direct replacement of striking workers reflects global good practice and protects temps and agencies from being drawn into disputes that are nothing to do with them. Removal of the ban does nothing to resolve those disputes either. The REC was clear in 2022 that this is a step which only causes problems for businesses and workers in reality – however good politicians think it sounds.”

TUC General Secretary Paul Nowak also said in the joint statement, “The humiliating High Court defeat should have been the final nail in the coffin for these unworkable, shoddy plans to overturn the long-standing ban on agency workers filling in for striking workers.”

“Bringing in agency staff to deliver important services in place of strikers risks worsening disputes and poisoning industrial relations,” Nowak said. “Agency recruitment bodies have repeatedly made clear they don’t want their staff to be put in the position where they have to cover strikes. It’s time for ministers to listen and drop these plans for good.”

The REC stated it is looking into the matters raised in the Unison article and would welcome more information from the trade union.