you will get 28 days holiday per year (20 plus stats of the 8 are basically your bank hols so you already āaccrueā them.
you may get parity or go swedish depending on the agency and company you work at. for example Royal mail offer pay parity, some dont such as most supermarkets.
and as i was always told no harm in asking and if you dont ask you wont get so best of luck.
regarding the 12 weeks you need to do 12 weeks at the same company (this can be 1 day each week), if you have a break of more than 6 weeks during this period the whole thing resets.
When I worked for an agency and before all these new rules, I was on a guaranteed 40 hour, 5 day week, Monday to Friday. For a few years I was pretty happy with this - most weeks I would be working a whole week somewhere, but sometimes there would be no work on one day, so I would get my 8 hours for nothing. It also meant that I was sometimes working, when some others in the agency were not.
Then they changed the rule. I had always made it clear that I only worked weekdays, but they decided that the five days could be any five from seven. This meant that if I had no work on a Friday, they could phone me up on Saturday evening with a job on Sunday - effectively I would be on standby. At that point I told them where to go and took a full time, 50 hour week job on general haulage. Never regretted that decision.
mac12:
You do not have to work for 12 weeks straight though you can have a gap of up to 6 weeks, and a weeks work can be as little as 1 hour.
After 12 weeks you get nearly everything regular staff get such as pay, holidays, free use of canteen some things arenāt covered but cannot remember what.
You need to check what you signed at the agency because to get round AWR they put you on a reg 10 contract which means you work for the agency so never get AWR rights but can be guaranteed so many hours pay per week even if no work, you will never get this as they will always have something for you to do.
If LTD you still get some rights but not many
True, but in practice I donāt know of this occuring. Even at somewhere like Royal Mail when you get onto Parity pay - theyāll be only giving āweek 13 and onwardsā to those drivers that have put in 12 weeks FLAT OUT (5 from 7) rather than bods like me whoāll get one or two shifts a week, 8 weeks on the spin, and then get dropped in plenty of time to avoid ever having to pay me parity pay.
Thatās why Iāve got no intention of working anything but plum odd shifts at RM this coming Christmas btwā¦
syramax:
not sure about all the benefits , but when I was with agency I was pleasantly surprised to get a phone call from them to say as from next week your hourly rate goes up to x in line with what the full timers were getting . the job was origionaly for 2 weeks up until Christmas and I was there till the end of july
Think your agency has been under paying you if you were on less than the full time staff, only time Iāve had that was in 1988 when I first started driving, not heard of it since.
sorry gentlemen I should have made it clear I was working in a warehouse (new balance ) not driving .
war1974:
winseer i would be surprised if rm cant give you a shift a week at this time of year.
parity is pretty good and they are onyl one i know who do it properly.
ā¦ but itās not available unless you get flat-out work. Thatās the problem.
Commandment One at RM is āThou shalt drive for no one else but me - for I am a jealous employerā
Do 5 days in the week at one employer at your agency, and then try and pick up a plum weekend shift at RM - OOOhhhh!
They get you to download your card when you turn up for a shift - to try and catch you out working ātoo many hoursā elsewhereā¦ If youāve got 32 hours, theyāll give you a single shift. If you have 19 hours, theyāll NOT give you a āfull weekā, because youāre deemed to ānot have enough hours left to do the shifts involvedā.
I tend not to get any odd shifts until just after Christmas, which then peter out by the middle of January.
Iād LOVE to be able to say, start working for the Christmas period, then get at least a day a week during the quiet jan-march season, building up towards the magic parity rate, but losing the mininum possible whilst āgetting thereāā¦
Only the Manpower/Pertemps agencies will be given the work initially by RM however, and what they canāt cover gets subbed out to agencies like mine.
The thought of working flat out across any more Christmas seasons for Ā£10-Ā£12ph when everyone else around me is on Ā£14.64+ makes me feel sick. Only by picking and choosing the most plum odd shifts (eg. a job and knock sunday) can I claim any kind of victory when on such disparate rates otherwise. When on a lower rate, the more hours you work, the more you lose.
Working 5 hours and getting paid for 8 therefore is about the only way it can float my boat Iāve come to realiseā¦
Conor:
As mike says, they may use the Swedish Derogation to get around it but if they are they must pay you a set amount when there is no work.
Also the AWR only applies to agency workers on PAYE directly from the agency, not those using umbrella schemes or Ltd/self employed. If you are using an umbrella/Ltd/self employed then you would have to effectively go to yourself to get the same pay under AWR.
Iām in a different situation. I am sub-contracted out from one agency to another. Under AWR Iām therefore only entitled to the same pay/conditions as the agency drivers at the agency Iām sub-contracted to, not their client. Fortunately I already get that so Iām happy. The other contracts I get sent on I get paid more so I donāt really want to push AWR as its not to my benefit. However if I was working for the agency Iām subbied to on PAYE at the place Iām at I sure as hell would be pushing for AWR as their drivers are on Ā£250/week more for a 56hr week plus bonus and pension scheme. From what I can gather from the rumour mill it appears some of their drivers have woken up to this and thereās some worried people at the agency because thereās quite a few drivers been in there effectively full time for the entirety of the time the AWR has existed. It could result in a payout of Ā£10,000s per driver if it were to go to tribunal.
How come the agency never put these drivers on reg 10 Swedish derogation contracts.
mac12:
How come the agency never put these drivers on reg 10 Swedish derogation contracts.
Probably like most agencies, arrogance. A belief that theyāre above the law, that their staff will accept the bull that they spout as fact. If they have them on Swedish Deg they have to pay them when its quiet. If they treat their staff like mushrooms then they can get away with it and during a recession how many agency staff are going to complain for fear of being given no more work? Only problem is now thereās more work than drivers, you can walk out of one job into another and some of these mushrooms have seen the sun. Few companies pay more than agency do however this is one place that does by quite some margin and one which uses a lot of agency drivers.
MikeDBristol:
Good questions. Iām coming up to having worked for an agency for 12 weeks.
Itās not 12 weeks work itās 12 weeks for the same company, but if they get less pay so do you.
Donāt be silly!
If a yard tried to drop oneās rate to the full timerās lower rate on week 13 - youād just ask your agency boss ādonāt bother putting me in there again, until itās lapsedāā¦ 8 weeks I think that takes.
In practice, itāll never be this way around - always the other way around where youāll get dropped on week 12, like when being sent into Royal Mail.
The driver workforce pay a heavy price when employers and agencies do these āexclusive supplierā contract things. If āsupplying RMā was a free-for-all, then theyād get a much bigger pool of drivers in there, and they could pick and choose which ones to keep on, rather than be obliged to keep on any old dross via Manpower, but denied anyone subbed in thatās actually worked there full time like myself. Iāve lost count of the number of times the wall next to bays 1 and 10 has been knocked down where I used to workā¦ Unless some full timer wants to put their hand up and admit THEY did it, should I be wrong in my assumption that 99% of āfresh damageā is from the āfresh recruitāā¦
Oh man change the record. Royal Mail donāt use one agency exclusively. They donāt drop drivers at 12 weeks just to avoid parity pay. Maybe the drivers getting dropped are being dropped for a reason. Youāre basig all your assumptions on the fact you USED to work there and what youāve seen in the past.
m1cks:
Oh man change the record. Royal Mail donāt use one agency exclusively. They donāt drop drivers at 12 weeks just to avoid parity pay. Maybe the drivers getting dropped are being dropped for a reason. Youāre basig all your assumptions on the fact you USED to work there and what youāve seen in the past.
Iāve already said, I get dropped because I donāt work via manpower/pertemps - the āmain supplier agenciesā.
Iāve subbed into there at Christmas these past 2 years, but on my regular agecy rate - no parity pay.
I have enquired 3 times at Manpower about signing up with them, and got told "We donāt want no more ex-RM drivers to put into RM ourselves. I assume then that itās more policy than personal.
If there was actually something wrong with myself, then I wouldnāt be put in there at all - right? The āUsedā to doesnāt come into it. I still do sporradic shifts in there as a sub.
At Christmas time, Iām under pressure though to do whole weeks, which I do not want this year, as I feel I should be entitled to the better deal everyone else gets for doing their ā5 from 7ā.
Itās MANPOWER that are likely dropping me as a sub as to avoid parity payā¦ I would imagine my own agency would be chomping at the bit for a big handout like that coming over from Manpower otherwise every time they put a sub in thereā¦ Iām sick of the way Manpower manage to ā ā ā ā on my chips even when Iāve yet to actually work for them direct, despite taking the trouble to sign up 3 times in the past, only to then be offered āno local workā. (Last job they offered me was in Oxford Streetā¦ I donāt even live inside the M25ā¦)
I got told they want me to have a HIAB last time I enquiredā¦ āWhy TF do I want a HIAB for working at RMā said I? On a previous occasion, I was offered 3 months of 5 from 7 at Lehnam Storage (30 miles from me) for a measly Ā£9.00ph āto startā. FFS no one else is telling me they āhad to run the gauntlet of weeks at some crappy yard before being eligable for the better paying yardsāā¦
Meanwhile, other drivers I know get straight through, and I see them duly doffing the manpower bomber jacket weeks later, them already the same number of weeks towards parity without any trouble whatsoeverā¦ Now THAT does make it seem āPersonalā donāt it? Indeed, if RM actually had anything to do with this āconspiracy against myselfā - then I was right to leave when I didā¦ āJump before I could be pushedā - if it turns out I was THAT unpopular when I was a full timer thereā¦
if it turns out I was THAT unpopular when I was a full timer thereā¦
Let me kniw your name and i can akways ask sime SEDC guys
If you knew any āSEDC guysā - youād already know who I am. Itās not as if Iāve ever made a secret of it.
There are four ways to be unpopular as a full timer -
(1) With fellow rank and file - for example, if I had any reputation as a āfirms boyā or āgrassā in day-to-day workingsā¦
(2) With Management - If I was always bringing the firm into disrepute, damage to vehicles and/or load, not getting jobs done, etc.
(3) With the high command - if Iāve been a whistle-blower on some scam being palmed off on the workforce that others have not worked out yet (eg. āfiscal drag & the way forwardā)
Meanwhile, on my āsick recordā Iād never got past āstage oneā, while others have got the gooner for reaching the āreasons to urgeā stage before, and since - I left.
(4) With the Union - If my complaints regarding (3) were never believed, and I am considered a āboat rockerāā¦
I can only say with all honesty, that only (3) and (4) can possibly apply to me, otherwise I would have been given the bullet long ago rather than offered EVR - which would have earned some faceless white collar somewhere a nice bonus for saving a big stack of money for the firm I would have thoughtā¦
Iāve had, and still have a clean licence throughout the years I worked there. I never crossed picket lines during strikes, and supported the majority decision as to having a strike or not, even if Iād not voted for it myself.
There is also one other aspect of āirritating the high commandā that I could put my hand up toā¦ But I would imagine that at the local level, no one ever gave a ā ā ā ā about that - workforce and management alike, as it didnāt affect them. It may have provoked some kind of standing instruction to local management to āput up as many barriers to me coming back as a regularā though. Letās see what happens over the next few weeks in particular regarding that, bearing in mind Iām only offering to work weekends & nights odd shifts this coming Christmas ā¦
the 8 are basically your bank hols so you already āaccrueā them.
the job was origionaly for 2 weeks up until Christmas and I was there till the end of july 
Indeed, if RM actually had anything to do with this āconspiracy against myselfā - then I was right to leave when I didā¦ āJump before I could be pushedā - if it turns out I was THAT unpopular when I was a full timer thereā¦ 
