Agency workers getting holiday rights

[thunderlizard]

Anybody worried about this thing thrusting its way through Parliament? Will big-shots like us get an opt-out again?

[tim123]

It's not going to get through parliament. It's a private members bill, if the Tories don't block it, the government will.

What it is doing is showing the strength of feeling backbenchers have on the issue, so the government might be persuaded to legislate later.

Sensibly worded it should not affect Ltd company contractors, but NL don't have a good track record on sensible implementation.

(And finally Temps already have holiday rights, you are confusing this with something else)

tim

[Sockpuppet]

Anybody worried about this thing thrusting its way through Parliament? Will big-shots like us get an opt-out again?

Agency workers have always had holiday pay.

[BoredBloke]

I didn't when I worked as a temp when I left uni - but that was in the dark ages

[tim123]

I didn't when I worked as a temp when I left uni - but that was in the dark ages

Temps have holiday pay since the WTD mandated a minimum of 4 week pa.

The first draft of the WTD had a qualifying period of 13 weeks, but Europe told HMG that this qualifying period was not allowed and they had to remove it.

Then temp agencies tried to amortize holiday pay into the normal pay, so that temps effectively got money for holidays, but not actual holidays. A Union challenged this method and won in the High Court, so since about 2004 temps must receive the minimum number of "actual" days off as per the WTD (which is now 4.8 weeks per year).

tim

[SueEllen]

The bill is about giving temps the same rights as permanent staff as in pensions, benefits and legal employment rights.

The MPs and Unions proposing this legislation don't realise that companies who use such temps will use other tricks so that all the workforce is on the same poor pay and benefit structure, and that companies can easily circumvent employment rights as most workers don't have a clue what their rights are.

Also this will effect some companies like the ones I worked for after uni who use temp workers:
1. as a way to decide whether to employ someone permanently
2. because they simply can't get anyone permanent who will take the carp job on offer
3. to cover maternity absence

[tim123]

I think it's perfectly clear to everybody why some companies use temps.

It's also perfectly clear to anyone who has any contact with industrial relations that many companies abuse the position of temps.

The problem is how to stop the abuse without harming the legitimate use.

A qualifying period of 6 months seems an appropriate way to do this, but neither side are happy with that so they wont agree a compromise.

ISTM that this can't really be about the industrial advantage of UK PLC because no other country in Europe uses temps to the extent that the UK does, and they all seem to manage, so why can't we?

tim

[Dow Jones]

It's called flexibility

A 'flexible work-force' is what keeps a lot of small companies from going under especially with all the other red tape that goes on (tax/vat/legislation). This is what drove 1m eastern Europeans to come and work here. If they (or their NL masters) now turn round and start complaining about their working conditions and pay, then all those jobs will go and they'll soon find themselves on the buses/planes/boats back where they came from.

[VectraMan]

I agree 6 months seems reasonable. It'll mean companies lay off temps before the 6 months, but then they are meant to be temps and you can't really have a situation where temps are employed for years without any rights.

I don't think we need to worry about any "psuedo employment" rubbish with this one. It isn't a tax gathering exercise, it's coming from the unions and the unions aren't going to care about the likes of us with limited companies. And the people stacking shelves, or helping with the filing aren't going to be bothered starting a limited company to do it.

[SueEllen]

A qualifying period of 6 months seems an appropriate way to do this, but neither side are happy with that so they wont agree a compromise.

All that would happen is either:
1. Temps will be employed on permanent contracts and sacked a day before their probabtionary period ends for made up things - which already happens.
2. Temps will be employed for the six months, sacked and re-employed a month later.

However much you legislate such employers will find there way round it if they have to.