Conor:
The only thing AWR regulations have done is to make agency workers worse off. Those on the 12 week rule will find themselves sat at home more and turfed off jobs they really like. Those on the Swedish Derog will have to do stuff they don’t want to in order to keep getting paid when there’s nowt.
A rare occasion, but Conor is 100% spot on here. Even I will openly admit I got it wrong when I was “introduced” to Nova Umbrella many years ago and sung their praises on here. Before all this BS came along agency work was a fairly decent craic where you could have your cake and eat it if you played your cards right, but nowadays they’re all in each other’s back pockets where they “contract” an umbrella company to do all their workers’ pay and taxes and both take a nice cut of your earnings in the process. It’s a right old con.
The problem is that between them they’ve got much of the haulage sector sown up and the hauliers won’t entertain you direct even if you wave your s/e cert or ltd co under their noses and instead direct you to their contracted agency, who of course in turn have their own contracted umbrella company as well.
I sympathise with all you guys doing agency work that are forced to use an umbrella company to get your money. When you sit down and work it out and see that your holiday pay is already included in your “pay”, then also add in the hassle factor of the paperwork every week, scanning and emailing receipts etc, you’re actually worse off than you’d be just being an employee of the haulier. Seriously. The nett pay box on your payslip from the umbrella only tells half the story.
Very interesting reading. Out of interest could people who’ve say been with an umbrella company and now decided to go down the sole trader/self employed LTD Co route get any monies back from the umbrella company ?
The HMRC keep harping about tax avoidance, it’s abut time they ended this umbrella nonsense once and for all. A lot of drivers would be better off if they did.
Conor:
The only thing AWR regulations have done is to make agency workers worse off. Those on the 12 week rule will find themselves sat at home more and turfed off jobs they really like. Those on the Swedish Derog will have to do stuff they don’t want to in order to keep getting paid when there’s nowt.
i no of 2 agenices who forgot to put drivers on Regulation 10 (swedish derog) untill after the 12 weeks if they have asked you to sign refuse they cannot get rid of you or take you out of the job because you can put a claim in,i no 1 company where the agency pays the driver extra but the firm he’s working at will not pay them extra so they lose money every hour he works.
Conor:
The only thing AWR regulations have done is to make agency workers worse off. Those on the 12 week rule will find themselves sat at home more and turfed off jobs they really like. Those on the Swedish Derog will have to do stuff they don’t want to in order to keep getting paid when there’s nowt.
i no of 2 agenices who forgot to put drivers on Regulation 10 (swedish derog) untill after the 12 weeks if they have asked you to sign refuse they cannot get rid of you or take you out of the job because you can put a claim in,i no 1 company where the agency pays the driver extra but the firm he’s working at will not pay them extra so they lose money every hour he works.
If this were true, surely they would just find any excuse to not give him work? Other agencies have no problem with that, especially at the beginning of each year after all? You can’t claim for being “too far down the pecking order for incoming jobs”…
they don’t have to give work but he can them claim for detriment under regulation 17 (3) not getting work after asking for his rights.Could be paid for the same hours as any other driver there even though he’s at home.
Yes, but what happens if the agency says there’s no work for “anyone”, and indeed you don’t know of “anyone” else who’s getting work over you?
If everyone is “apparently” getting the bum end of the stick, then there’s no discrimination that can be proved is there?
An agency might have 100 drivers on it’s books, of which only ten (relatives & personal friends of management) get work every week. One guy and his mate might be 34 and 44 on the pecking order respectively, and effectively both be assigned or left sitting on the sidelines the same weeks. The core work only floods above the first 10 mark during the busy periods, when it will surge to maybe 80-90 drivers employed at once. This would mean you could be johnny come lately at 90 and get work just as often as the guy on 34 or 11 even!
SuperLooey:
Very interesting reading. Out of interest could people who’ve say been with an umbrella company and now decided to go down the sole trader/self employed LTD Co route get any monies back from the umbrella company ?
Not one penny other than any outstanding holiday pay.
Winseer:
Yes, but what happens if the agency says there’s no work for “anyone”, and indeed you don’t know of “anyone” else who’s getting work over you?
If you suspect that is a crock of crap or done solely to deny you the money you can still make a claim.
I can’t say I’ve ever seen a suit busted for turning over one of the workers - ever. When one wins a case for discrimination, it’s usually a compensation payout from the FIRM - and the offending suit stays, sometimes not even being “disciplined” for losing the firm a case.
GasGas:
My advice is to STAY OUT of the umbrella schemes.
Be a SOLE TRADER.
You just have to fill in a simple four-page TAX FORM once a year. You don’t have to be an accountant to do this. I’ve got CSE grade 2 maths and I can do it.
You can offset all sorts of expenses, including your lunch, your workboots, a nice coat, a torch, hard hat, hi viz, gloves, truck parking, driving your car to the various places where you work, interest paid when you go overdrawn, credit card interest and so on, against your taxable income.Just keep receipts for everything and add them up at the end of the month.
You soon realise how self-employed people can drink Costa Coffee at £2.50 a cup…the tax man is paying for most of it!
The umbrella company will claim all this on your behalf (very kind of them) then KEEP nearly all of IT.
Don’t let 'em get away with it.
I agree with you 100 per cent about umbrella companies, scum of the earth selling snake oil.
I’d be careful with your claims against taxable income, if you look at the HMRC guidelines hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/bimmanual/bim37670.htm it shows meals only allowable as part of a night out.
I am self employed and I do have an accountant. In my opinion his advice is easily worth the money I pay him.
You pays your money and you takes your choice, when or if I have a tax investigation, professionally prepared accounts by a decent chartered accountant are about all the defence I will have. What will you have?
You can claim the sky is pink, but you won’t win anything unless you can prove it - which you can’t.
There are a lot of openly crooked and/or shameful practices going on in today’s business world, but the legal system supports “the captains of industry” over the bod that works there, so nothing will ever get done - except maybe the whistleblower getting sacked under the “social media policy”
Loss of Union power has gone too far the other way now, and we now have a crook’s charter in too many areas of business. Those honest firms that play it all straight tend to never have any vacancies or go under from unfair competition from corner-cutting rivals.
When the AWR direction came in to law in Ireland after a few months my self and a few of the lads working with me managed to get paid the same rate as the full time lads,I know from reading some of the posts here that some companies get the driver to go as self employed and look after their own NI/VAT etc is it popular in the UK? are there many companies operating in the UK doing this sort of work.
The reason I’m asking is that a company called TRG has set up in Dublin looking to get drivers and rumour has it that there here on behalf of the green monster who seemingly cannot get drivers to work for him with the agencies they use here,The hourly rate is about €1.50 more than what the other agencies pay but TRG seemingly deduct€50 for pay roll admin etc.
Its not just pay is it? Say for instance there is a staff discount in the canteen if you dont include agency after 12 weeks that is shakey HR territory. Our governor giving out christmas hampers the other day was quite uncomfortable regular agency where not included. Charging agency 10 quid a head for a chritmas night out and core pay nothing again thats not ‘‘equalisation’’
But then how does it work the other way round like bank holidays we dont get paid any extra, will the agency need to pay time and a half to their drivers even if we don’t? If we get stood down before a shift we get ■■■■ all if they get stood down they get a full shift paid will that end?
I think its all one big HR nightmare and im amazed you’ve not heard any stories either MMTM or news stories about it since it came in a few months ago.
I don’t see a.ything wrong with agency workers not getting xmas bonuses, not invited to works parties etc. At the end of the day they’re on hire, and employed by the agency. No different to a hired truck or digger, when the work’s slack, anything hired is simply off-hired.
merc0447:
Its not just pay is it? Say for instance there is a staff discount in the canteen if you dont include agency after 12 weeks that is shakey HR territory. Our governor giving out christmas hampers the other day was quite uncomfortable regular agency where not included. Charging agency 10 quid a head for a chritmas night out and core pay nothing again thats not ‘‘equalisation’’
But then how does it work the other way round like bank holidays we dont get paid any extra, will the agency need to pay time and a half to their drivers even if we don’t? If we get stood down before a shift we get [zb] all if they get stood down they get a full shift paid will that end?
I think its all one big HR nightmare and im amazed you’ve not heard any stories either MMTM or news stories about it since it came in a few months ago.
After agency staff have done there 12 weeks they get the same as regular staff,if they get £10 per hour on a bank holiday so do agency staff not £15. Same with getting sent home if you don’t get paid then they don’t. Don’t think it would happen but if an agency worker was on £10 per hour but regular staff are on £8 then after 12 weeks agency staff come down to £8.
Staff working for flat money on bank holidays get that because it’s considered part of their normal working hours for the week, having been given a useless day off midweek, leaving them short of aggregate to their contracted hours.
I would not object as agency being told I’d get £8 instead of £15 on a bank holiday if I got a fully-paid-up DAY OFF IN LIEU like a full timer forced to work bank holidays would still get… Since my normal shift is 12-15 hours, I’d expect at least a “day off in lieu” to be a minimum therefore of 12 hours mid-week pay. Fair enough!
ra dar:
When the AWR direction came in to law in Ireland after a few months my self and a few of the lads working with me managed to get paid the same rate as the full time lads,I know from reading some of the posts here that some companies get the driver to go as self employed and look after their own NI/VAT etc is it popular in the UK? are there many companies operating in the UK doing this sort of work.
The reason I’m asking is that a company called TRG has set up in Dublin looking to get drivers and rumour has it that there here on behalf of the green monster who seemingly cannot get drivers to work for him with the agencies they use here,The hourly rate is about €1.50 more than what the other agencies pay but TRG seemingly deduct€50 for pay roll admin etc.
I knew there was something wrong with that firm when they asked me to “recruit other drivers for a kickbac” during the sign-up seminar!
Set alarm bells ringing? - Sure it did!
I don’t understand though why they waste their own money on binned stationary, phone calls to DVLA, and the like when they surely know that the candidate will withdraw once they find out the whole thing is a big fiddle?
Winseer:
Staff working for flat money on bank holidays get that because it’s considered part of their normal working hours for the week, having been given a useless day off midweek, leaving them short of aggregate to their contracted hours.
I would not object as agency being told I’d get £8 instead of £15 on a bank holiday if I got a fully-paid-up DAY OFF IN LIEU like a full timer forced to work bank holidays would still get… Since my normal shift is 12-15 hours, I’d expect at least a “day off in lieu” to be a minimum therefore of 12 hours mid-week pay. Fair enough!
You don’t get a day of in lieu but you do get the same amount of holidays depending on how many days you work
