Great post!
I’ll just add that “Sick Pay” even at PAYE agencies - seems more scant by the day. I’ve spent 5 of the last 9 years on different agencies and during that time I’ve come across:
0 agencies that paid any sick pay for the 4 shifts I dropped through actual illness over this period. One of them - let me go over it.
2 days where I turned up on time for a shift, only to be told “I’d been cancelled, and if you try to claim a minimum call out for it - you’ll never work here again”
3 days where I was cancelled as I was putting my coat on to come in.
3 days where I was sent to the wrong depot for a shift. (1 of those, the depot put me to use, and I got paid though - so I tip my hat to what was then Yodel, Aylesford for that)
2 payslips where £27 was deducted, and they lied and lied and lied that “I’d be better off for it”. I wasn’t. I was £27 down for it.
1 Agency that tried to charge me for PPE when I was clearly using my own already.
1 agency that only paid “average hours from previous 2 weeks” as “holiday pay” - only to NEVER EVER let me take a holiday after I’d just done a 5-6 fortnight with weekends/nights shifts in it.
4 agencies that never even gave me a first shift.
2 agencies that offered me a first shift over 80 miles away, which I refused on the grounds of “economically unviable” (5 hours guaranteed, £10ph in 2012 - commuting from Medway, Kent to (old) Iceland Harlow)
1 agency that offered me £12ph and when I got paid it was minimum wage instead “You didn’t ask us for it in writing pal, and there’s plenty of other fish in the sea if you’re done with us…”
1 agency that kept offering me horrible sounding shifts, that I took - but then they phoned straight back to say it was cancelled.
1 client that wouldn’t give me a shift - if I didn’t have any 15 hour availability left for that week.
…and on the upside…
2 client shifts (same agency) where I got paid 6 hours after being cancelled at the last minute
4 client shifts (2 agencies) where I was on “induction training” - but got paid. (supermarkets)
2 agencies where I got 12.07% of gross earnings paid into a “Holiday Pot” that then didn’t decay over time.
2 agencies that actually deducted the correct tax and NI - straight out of the gate.
2 agencies I didn’t get a back tax demand from HMRC over
3 agencies that didn’t “Let me go” over something that was clearly the client or agency’s fault.
2 agencies that actually had the promised “Plenty of work, ongoingly…”
1 agency that got me a temp-perm full time job for nearly three years at one of their clients