Bectu launches code of practice

The agreement lists a set of parameters for employers on how best to fulfil their duty of care to freelancers and permanent staff.

It covers employment issues such as pay, working environment, health and safety, working hours and personal development.

The DIA Group (including Alias Hire, The Crewing Company and The Bridge Training) and design agency Digital Snowball are the first firms to sign the agreement.

Bectu national official Patrick Styles said: “Agreed standards are clearly a good thing for both our members and the companies signing up to this initiative; this joint commitment to aim high in respect of standards at work is a powerful expression of what workers in the creative industries rightly expect of good employers.”

Joint MD of The Crewing Company Stuart Hatton said: “We work in a business where there are companies with reputations for not treating the talent that they represent as well as they should.

“Instead, they focus all their attention on the companies that are booking them rather than the freelancers themselves. We want the world to know that this is not the way we operate. We care very much for the people we represent, not least because they are our best assets.”