Pam Magazine 9/13: Temporary agency workers left hanging at Inex
Inex is only paying incentive bonuses to its own employees at Hakkilankaari in Vantaa.
People are working hard but not getting paid the same for same tasks at Inex Partners new logistics centre in Hakkilankaari, which opened in February. Inex employees transferring to Hakkilankaari in Vantaa from other units have retained their earlier incentive bonuses.
However, the majority of the people, some 150 in total, work at Hakkilankaari as temporary agency workers.They are not entitled to incentive bonuses. The total loss of monthly wages for the temps amounts to hundreds of euros.
Union rep Heikki Laakkonen had had enough when Inex decided to introduce new incentives in Hakkilankaari from the beginning of June. Again, they will only be paid to Inex employees.
“There are absolutely no grounds for not paying incentives. People have felt betrayed when incentives were promised but not delivered,” says Mr Laukkonen.
According to Inex, a subsidiary of the logistics company SOK, paying incentives to temporary agency workers would have been difficult without first testing the system on their own employees.
“Hakkilankaari is a new facility, and the tasks have not been assessed yet. We will start assessing the tasks in the beginning of June, and the assessments will be reflected in our own employees’ wages in July,” says Terhi Luomala, HR Director at Inex.
“Of course it is our aim to introduce incentives for the agency workers as well.”
The latest response Mr Laakkonen received, after requesting a comment from Inex in writing, read “we will look into incentives for agency workers during the summer at the latest.”
According to Mr Laakkonen, incentives for agency workers have been promised all spring. Several temporary agency workers interviewed by Pam Magazine confirm this.
“They gave me a verbal promise at my interview, and again over the phone when we agreed that I will transfer to Hakkilankaari,” says one temporary agency worker.
In an interview, one person told us about running introduction sessions for new employees and not receiving the substantial addition to the hourly pay that the Inex employees are entitled to.
“A new employee's introduction takes three days, and new people are starting all the time,” our interviewee says.
Even those Inex employees that we interviewed wish that agency workers were paid incentives.
“I think the incentives should be paid to temps as well, absolutely,” says Maija Ström, who has worked for Inex for eleven years.
According to her, the incentives can add up to 200-500 euro per month. Ms Ström feels that equal treatment would also put an end to manipulation in the workplace as ’more expensive’ tasks could not be assigned to the cheaper workers.
Hakkilankaari has temporary agency workers from Transval, Barona, VMP, and Suomen Henkilöstötalo. This means that there is internal competition between the agencies within Inex.
As such, Inex is abiding by legislation and the collective agreement. Decisions regarding incentive bonus payments are made by the companies using temporary agency workers.
According to postdoctoral researcher Antti Tanskanen, who defended his doctoral thesis on temporary agency work last year at the University of Helsinki, the median hourly pay of agency workers is as much as 25 per cent smaller than that of other workers. He also states that it is common practice to exclude agency workers from incentive pay programmes.
The amount of agency workers used is another way of playing around agency workers and pay incentives.
Keslog, the company that provides logistics services for Kesko, has also excluded agency workers from incentive programmes, but then they are hardly ever used. Nationwide, Keslog has approximately 1,700 employees, but, according to chief union rep Petri Järvinen, only extreme situations might cause the company to use temporary agency workers, maybe a dozen of them.
Terhi Luomala estimates that out of the 2,000 Inex employees, 15 to 20 per cent are temporary agency workers. Very few of them work in the older logistics centres.
Then again, Meira Nova, the logistics subsidiary of SOK, and Finnfrost logistics centre, which is half owned by Inex, offer the same incentive programmes to both temporary agency workers and their own employees.
Matias Manner
Text:: Tiina Ritala