For 16 months now I’ve been working for an agency at the same company, as of the end of this month, the current agency are no longer being used by the company and are being replaced by milestone. Do milestone have to take us on under our current T&C’s, which is employed by my current agency, guaranteed 15 hours a week if no work, holiday pay. Or can milestone come in and try to force us to go self employed as that’s what I come across on how they mainly operate on a self employed basis.
We have a meeting with them later today but would like an idea on where we stand as I would rather continue with the same T&C’s as I am currently on, don’t want to go self employed or fortnightly pay.
Milestone won’t be obliged to take you on, if you want to continue working at the same company then you will have to sign on with them as with any other agency. All that has happened is that your original agency have lost the contract to supply workers, probably because Milestone have made them a better offer which almost certainly will be a reduction in cost - ie your wages/terms.
As you have been with the company for 16 months you should now be covered by the Agency Working Regulations, but that certainly does not include any guarantee of continued employment, let alone continuing the same conditions between agencies, and yes, Milestone will probably insist on your going self employed in one form or another. Welcome to the reality of agency driving.
Ive had some recent experience of working with “Milestone” and my experience isnt a good one so far They took over the DHL contracts of the local Blue Arrow office, along with the BA office staff who have TUPEd over who ran it.
Before the local switch over they arranged for all the drivers on the books to attend a meeting 10+ drivers at a time to sign up. As is typical of these kind of meetings the drivers where asking irrelivant questions to the MS staff, and confusing the issue which dragged out the meeting. The HUGE lack of info at this meeting was bizzarre, particularly proceedural stuff like how/where to send invoices.
There wasnt a suitable MS timesheet available until 6 days after the switch over, not to mention the list of contacts, email address, phone numbers etc for both local and national offices. Typically MS will switch the rates around, usually to a flat rate instead of O/T after 8hrs etc. Always get the rates in writing, preferably by email, so your certain of exactly what your working for. They also pay fortnightly, even though your Sposed to submit timesheets AND invoices weekly to the local office, and submit an invoice to the main payroll Dept down south. Though it would be wise to ask exactly how the want timesheets etc presenting, IE: a 7 day period, or a 14 day period. Though getting paid by them nearly turned into a comedy of errors, this is usually the fault of the local office, but luckily with a little effort some of us have found the phone number and email address of the head of finance and payroll, and if a payment hasnt been paid on the Weds, hes able to action the outstanding payment immediately. HOWEVER most of the issues I encounted are down to the incompitance to the local agents on site and not the folks at head office
They will probably “prefer” you to be self employed, preferably via an umbrella Co. realistically it wouldn`t take em long to them to make your current employent status (if your PAYE on garanteed min hrs) impossible.
I actually sat in the canteen listening to the MS ladies lecturing the BA guys on how to explain to drivers and calm their worries that it would be benificial to the driver if they where self employed.
If the OP is ok with spreadsheets, I have a copy of the MS timesheet on excel, along with the basic MS invoice format and maybe a couple of contacts that arnt in the "welcome booklet" he can PM an email address and Ill forward the stuff
Cheers for your help there lads, have had our meeting with someone from milestone HR dept and from what she had to say, nothing is going to change from T&Cs we are on now, so can’t complain too much. That applies to anybody who has been there a certain time, any of the new lads had to have a chat after to fill out forms and stuff, will see what they got told on Monday.
Pierre, very in depth info, thanks for taking the time for that, really appreciate it. How recent are your experiences? As its also blue arrow that’s getting kicked out of the place I am working at.
Have PM’d you Pierre