Friends Of The Common People A Private member's Bill was put before the Commons yesterday which, if passed, would have led to firms being unable to unfairly discriminate against temporary / agency workers. (TEMPORARY AND AGENCY WORKERS (PREVENTION OF LESS FAVOURABLE TREATMENT) BILL:?Second Reading. Member in charge: Paul Farrelly). Examples cited by MP Paul Farrely (who is a Labour Party MP for Newcastle-Under-Lyme) were the case of a man who had worked for Salford Council for three years, was paid a third less than his colleagues employed directly by the council, and got no holiday provision or sick pay. Another case cited was a man who worked for 9 years in a call centre as an agency employee and could not get a mortgage because of his temporary status. This bill would have prevented this sort of discrimination, just the sort of thing the Labour party stands for, or so you might imagine. The bill was not passed, it was talked out of time in the Commons......by a Labour Minister, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry Jim Fitzpatrick Nice, just another stab in the back for the traditional Labour voter then. Labour MP's in the commons were so disgusted that one MP (Andrew Dismore, Labour, Hendon) said "Is there any way of recording in Hansard that dozens of Labour Members came today to support the Bill, that we decided not to stand to make a speech to make sure that it had a reasonable chance of getting a Second Reading, and that we are extremely dismayed and ashamed of the fact that our Front Bench has not acceded to the request of so many..." At which point he was cut off by the Deputy Speaker. What exactly is it that Nu-Labour stands for at the moment ? Apart from telling lies to start wars that is.