The scenario is:-
Friday your agency calls you and books you for a 7am start at company on Saturday. They explain that the run is drive to point to load, drive to point b to tip and then back to base. Due to the distances involves Saturday will be a night out.
My expectation for pay is (guaranteed 8 + overtime Saturday) + night out allowance + (guaranteed 8 + overtime Sunday).
With me so far??
At 6:50am Saturday I call the on call agency to say I may be a few minutes late at the clients yard. No problem.
On arrival at the yard bang on 7am I approach a guy and ask if he’s the site foreman. He is and tells me rather sheepishly that he doesn’t need me. He then goes into some spiel about having called the agency and cancelled me the day before. I perceived his body language to indicate bullspit.
He then asked me to drive across the docks to the main office in order to download my digicard covering a previous shift I had worked some weeks ago and I then went home.
The question is, What pay should I be booking for this weekend, and what am I reasonably entitled to, assuming the two answers are different??
dar1976:
You turned up on site ready for work with no prior notice of cancellation.
You should claim for yesterday for 8 hours.
As to whether the agency will pay up is another thing.
Might be worth checking the T&C you signed at sign up.
When this has happened when ESL were the client I’d get paid up no problems, however, this client isn’t ESL, and a few weeks ago I got clobbered in the head by a curtain pole whilst at a different client and had to go to hospital for stitches. On return from hospital I got sent home and was only paid 3 hours. I’m a little concerned to say the least.
How far did you drive to get to the place? At absolute minimum you should get expenses for that because at the moment you are out of pocket and would be better off if you had stayed in bed. Do your agency get you to get your hours signed off by the client? That is always a pain when this happens as they don’t want to sign that you did 8 hours work that you didn’t do, even though it’s their fault.
Get on the blower to the agency and explain calmly what happened and cross your fingers.
Closest situation I had was when I was under 25 and got sent to a job, who promptly asked me how old I was because their insurance started at 25. Needless to say got sent home, no pay, no compensation of any kind for having driven there. The worrying this was that the week before I’d done 8 hours in a transit for them, apparently completely uninsured…and was invited back there because they liked my attitude.
I didn’t drive far probably 15 miles in total.
I don’t use timesheets with this agency as I’ve been with them so long.
I just call payroll on Monday and tell them what I’ve worked the previous week.
I think this has happened to most agency drivers at some point. I don’t think you will get any pay but you can use this situation as a useful tool in negotiating your work for the next week or so as the agency kind of owe you one.
My mate had this happen to him, he never got paid and kicked up a fuss with the agency. Sent letters of complaint and everything else but still got nothing in the end. He just refused to work with them again. I told him to use it as a positive to get work sorted with them but he flatly refused. I’m still with the same agency, I work 11 out of 14 days. He does 2 or 3 a week if he is lucky, and that’s with a couple of different agencys. You have to manufacture your relationship with agencys, I think thats what I’ve done and it works for me.
I’ve arrived on site to be told that the job was cancelled several times over the years and always been paid 8 hours for it, mostly they’ve found me another run to do but that depends on the type of company you’re driving for.
One agency I worked for sent me to a job three times when the run had been cancelled, each time the agency paid me 8 hours and one of those shifts was on a Sunday when I was paid 8 hours at Sunday rate
You should book 8 hours, if the company never cancelled the run with the agency they should be prepared to pay.
I would ask for the 8 hours but be prepared to settle for four.
Out of curiosity - If the OP gets paid 8 hours for the Saturday would that count in any way to his actual working hours, either for the WTD or, more importantly, would it affect when his next weekly rest period was due?
Any less and I’d be wanting to know why. You’ve obviously done the agency proud in the past if you are able to not worry about time sheets.
If they don’t pay you then in your position I wouldn’t work for them again…in fact I’d threaten them with court action. Though you need to check your T n Cs first…
Always check the T n Cs before you start work for any agency, then no nasty surprises later.
Santa:
Out of curiosity - If the OP gets paid 8 hours for the Saturday would that count in any way to his actual working hours, either for the WTD or, more importantly, would it affect when his next weekly rest period was due?
Only the actual hours “worked” would count. So assuming he was on his way home again after 30 minutes “at work” then only that 30 minutes would be recorded under Tacho or WTD regs.
If he got a phone call cancelling him before he left home (but still managed to get 8 hours’ pay) then no “working” time would be recorded even though he was paid for his trouble.
In the past ive only been sent home cancelled from single days work eg 8 hours, but this booking was for a continuous 2 day shift with a night out in between. As I turned down other bookings in order to fulfil this, is there anybody that thinks there is any mileage in pushing for the 2 days to be paid at 8 hours per day■■?
coreysboys:
In the past ive only been sent home cancelled from single days work eg 8 hours, but this booking was for a continuous 2 day shift with a night out in between. As I turned down other bookings in order to fulfil this, is there anybody that thinks there is any mileage in pushing for the 2 days to be paid at 8 hours per day■■?
Yes, I would TBH. Tell them you’ve turned other work down to do their shifts. Plenty will say that you shouldn’t and you should be grateful to be sent somewhere for nothing. blah blah.
If you’ve given good service in the past I’d push them particularly hard.
Get an actual timesheet from your agency, it should have all the details about what happens if they send you away as I’ve had this in non driving jobs. They usually have to pay for anything prior to the assignment which includes travel, an hours work etc costs to the agency.
coreysboys:
In the past ive only been sent home cancelled from single days work eg 8 hours, but this booking was for a continuous 2 day shift with a night out in between. As I turned down other bookings in order to fulfil this, is there anybody that thinks there is any mileage in pushing for the 2 days to be paid at 8 hours per day■■?
think you be wasting your time asking to be paid for 2nd day as you were given 24hrs notice that it was cancelled
coreysboys:
In the past ive only been sent home cancelled from single days work eg 8 hours, but this booking was for a continuous 2 day shift with a night out in between. As I turned down other bookings in order to fulfil this, is there anybody that thinks there is any mileage in pushing for the 2 days to be paid at 8 hours per day■■?
think you be wasting your time asking to be paid for 2nd day as you were given 24hrs notice that it was cancelled
That’s the crux of my point. It wasn’t 2 separate days booking that I received no notice of the first day cancellation and 24 hours notice of the second. It was a single 2 day booking that I received no notice of clx.
I would absolutely, definitely be hitting them for the 2 X 8 hrs at the appropriate overtime rates and be making it know they’re getting off lightly at that. You’d turned other work down, maybe cancelled a social engagement to accommodate the night out, got up early, driven to site, etc. etc. You can be absolutely assured that if the co. had not let the agency know of the cancellation within their T&C hours that they will be invoicing the co. for the whole thing.
