mac12:
ETS do you have a contract that says they will pay you for maybe 8 hours in any week without work not just one day without work
I’ve signed so many ‘contracts’ with a number of agencies, I can’t remember. This is what I found on their website:
“Full automation of the 12-week qualifying clock guarantees our compliance with the equal pay provisions of AWR. Our system prevents us from assigning a worker to you after 12 weeks unless a compliant AWR solution is in place.” which sounds to me like “don’t worry, we got covered - no need for parity pay after 12 weeks”?
It dose to me. When the AWR came in the agencies gave contracts to staff saying you worked for them this got them out of the AWR, but as Conor as put this stops in April
toonsy:
I read that as they’ll not send you there after 12 weeks…
I’m starting my 18th week there
I remember ‘signing’ (click ‘Accept’ or you can’t proceed) an updated agreement/contract earlier this year because I had not worked for them in a while and had received P45 automatically, so I had to ‘re-activate’ my online account with the agency then the prompt to accept came up. I never had any intention to stick to the ‘contract’ because one of the clauses prohibited me from working elsewhere while ‘being employed’ with the current agency, another was I had to call them every day before 9 a.m. to confirm my availability and willingness to work that day, with 8 hours per week to be paid if no active assignment (never seen a penny) etc. non sense which I pretty much dismissed right away. I mean yeah, clicking OK or Accept was probably legally binding but I worked for another agency who had the exact same contract (don’t work for other agency) and it was the same, I mean if they’re not going to honor their end (pay me for weeks without work) then why should call them every day and not look for work elsewhere? It read almost like an employment contract regarding my obligations but the reality is I’m on a 0 hour contract as I don’t get guaranteed work and I don’t get any pay when there’s no work be it for a day or a month.
123smith:
Conor; will agencies have to take into account the extra deductions taken from agency pay when calculating parity? In particular I am thinking about employer’s National Insurance.
This applies to PAYE agency employees only, not Ltd or those doing self employment using an umbrella. An agency worker on PAYE does not have employers NI deducted from their wages unlike an agency worker being paid PAYE via an umbrella who works for the umbrella company, not the agency, the agency being a client of the umbrella company.
Yeah in theory most agency workers shouldn’t be affected by the Swedish Derogation but the fact is that they have been. Some of them are completely oblivious about parity pay and why they have been asked to sign a new contract at or before 12 weeks. Essentially it is either a case of the agency pretending they are doing the workers a favour employing them directly or taking them aside and saying if they don’t sign it there will be no more work for them. It is a bit like PPI, completely misselling a contract to people that are unaware.
However, the equally big culprits are the clients for insisting on avoiding equal pay in the first place. If an agency resists then it could lose a national contract.
I do note that Amazon put wages up for its warehouse staff last year and the agency rates were matched at the same time, which was quite a large pay rise of £1.50 or something for them. That actually goes further than AWR 2010 strictly requires. At least one of the behemoths has done the right thing.
Yeah in theory most agency workers shouldn’t be affected by the Swedish Derogation but the fact is that they have been. Some of them are completely oblivious about parity pay and why they have been asked to sign a new contract at or before 12 weeks. Essentially it is either a case of the agency pretending they are doing the workers a favour employing them directly or taking them aside and saying if they don’t sign it there will be no more work for them. It is a bit like PPI, completely misselling a contract to people that are unaware.
However, the equally big culprits are the clients for insisting on avoiding equal pay in the first place. If an agency resists then it could lose a national contract.
I do note that Amazon put wages up for its warehouse staff last year and the agency rates were matched at the same time, which was quite a large pay rise of £1.50 or something for them. That actually goes further than AWR 2010 strictly requires. At least one of the behemoths has done the right thing.
We could also ask why there was a “Derogation” in the first place?
I haven’t read all the comments on here so i apologise if i’m repeating what’s already been said. I worked for an agency not long ago who paid £12 a hour through and they paid holiday pay. When i got my first weeks pay they had deducted around £60 when i questioned it they said that’s your holiday pay we will pay you when you take time off .They also told me i was on a premium rate at £12 per hour. I told them in no uncertain terms that they must put that money back in every week Apparently they are obliged by law to do this but i can request it back at any time.I was on PAYE by the way
mac12:
If you have agreed a contract to work for the agency how can you sue them and you say you have seen a employment solicitor who’s paying him?
You dont have a contact with the agency.
The solicitor meeting was the standard no cost 30 minutes
When you first joined the agency you will have signed a pile of papers the contract will of been one of them
The first meeting with solicitor might be free what about the others going to court will take a lot of solicitor hours
According to the agency themselves we dont have a contract “as such” whatever that may mean. The fact ive been waiting months for a booklet they have that sets out the terms of engagement with them might answer a couple of questions.
The solicitor I spoke with has stated it may not be necessary to take it to court. The agency would want to avoid that.
