AGENCY WORKERS 12 WEEKS...WE'LL SEE ! (ALL CHANGE)

[greenstiles]

From Oct 11 2011 if you work for more than12 weeks there after you should receive the same pay and many conditions as your employed counter part.

I have been an agency binman for 15 solid months..............my 12 weeks qualifying period from the changes in Oct are now up............so do you think i'll start getting payed the same (about £1.00 more an hour) as my counterpart ?

or do you think this is going to backfire due to the agency companies no doubt asking for more money off the hirer to balance the increase they will have to pay out to the agency guys ?

Do you think that they will just keep getting new people every 12 weeks or pace them out over long periods of time so they don't have to pay the increase, and / or companies will want less agency workers because of the extra possible costs ?

 

[legrandefromage]

As a former agency worker, I'd say we're all fucked...

 

[greenstiles]

Well i've just found out !

Now that my 12 weeks is up the company i do the work for will be effectively laying all it's agency workers off for 6 weeks after they complete 12 weeks before giving us work again, nice of them to tell me after i've got up every morning to be on call just in case for the past 15 months.........''merry Christmas'' it was as I left for my weeks holiday, not a dicky bird, no mention of, '' by the way after xmas don't bother coming in for 6 weeks and we'll let you know after that ...., just had the agency guy on the phone who said they were prepared to absorb the pay increase and not charge the client any more.......... :evil: :evil: :evil: so he doesn't know why they haven't gone for the option......!!!

 

[uktyler]

I suspect its more about matching conditions such as sick pay.

The council would have to cover that and obviously don't want to, did no one in government think this would happen when they passed the law?

It'll just mean companies will use two agencies and rotate the staff before the 12 weeks is up.

 

[Drencrom]

Well i've just found out !

http://www.bis.gov.uk/policies/employme ... tegies/awd

On 21 January 2010 the Agency Workers Regulations 2010 were laid before Parliament, and will come into force on 1 October 2011. This followed earlier consultations (May - July 2009)...

This might be helpful: http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/biscore/em ... s-guidance

 

[greenstiles]

Well I must say at this present moment I have mixed emotions, I feel a bit of relief that I won't have to get up at 4.30am every week day and wait by the phone till 7.00am to see if someones off sick (they have different start times 7.00 being the last one for the highways, bins start earlier)

On the other hand i'm really angry the agency and the 2 guys in charge at the depot did not mention this before xmas. I only found out because i contacted the agency about my (as i thought) impending pay rise ! only to get a single sentence of '' what i can tell you is that you can expect at least a 6 week gap before going back to work''

:roll: :roll: :roll: Still i've always eaten and had a roof over my head, well apart from when i was homeless twice !

I/we will survive I just hate all this up and down and up and down again bollocks :?

 

[jimo746]

Having done agency work in the past I understand that it's business. This was always going to happen, neither the council/employer nor the agency will want to accept the increase in labour price, so the easy option is to lay off/end the contract just before the 12 weeks is up, as long as a good reason (excuse) can be used (made up).
Ironically I see this impacting negatively on the workers, the very people who were supposed to benfit, instead of getting an increase in wages after 12 weeks they will now have even shorter temporary contracts and less job security (if that's possible?!!) and wages will still be below that of the permanent employees.
Fantastic.

 

[cyfa2809]

I read recently this is going to be a tough year as workers become more passive aggresive. Is to be expected really. I dont really know what to say, its not hard to judge what is going to happen yet what can you do as a single worker?

 

[NAILTRAIL96]

I did agency work when I was younger and then they would pay the whole agency work force off for a fortnight over christmas to avoid any one making 12 months continuous employment.
The big advantage of agency staff is the lack of long term sick pay, hourly rate and holidays cost next to nothing in comparison.

 

[Agency_Scum]

My agency got bought out a few months ago and the petty new rules started flowing in just as the work dried up even more.