Reply to: Gig Cancelled Immediately After Signing Contract

[hairymouse]

Worth pointing out that you can't be bothered to call either, so the agent may be thinking that it's not that important to you.

As a business you have to put in some effort. You can't rely on others.

Thanks for the advice but I'd be pretty surprised if Clientco and the two agencies agreed to take the necessary cut for me to start working after all and the agent didn't just call me. I'll spend my time looking for a new one instead.

[hairymouse]

Surprised this thread is still going strong when the OP tells us he can get up to £500 a day & turned down £380 a day yet for some reason needs to get paid for 4 days work...…………. is that 4 days @ 380 or 450 I wonder cause it makes all the difference

I never said I expected to get paid for 4 days work. I'd rather not have had my time wasted but I'm on the bench so no big deal.

[uk contractor]

Surprised this thread is still going strong when the OP tells us he can get up to £500 a day & turned down £380 a day yet for some reason needs to get paid for 4 days work...…………. is that 4 days @ 380 or 450 I wonder cause it makes all the difference

[WTFH]

Thanks everyone for the advice. ClientCo did kick up some storm and the agent called me to say that there was going to be some meetings about it yesterday morning.
Since I never heard anything, I'm assuming the solution didn't involve me working with them and agent can't be bothered to call.

Worth pointing out that you can't be bothered to call either, so the agent may be thinking that it's not that important to you.

As a business you have to put in some effort. You can't rely on others.

[hairymouse]

Gig Cancelled Immediately After Signing Contract

Thanks everyone for the advice. ClientCo did kick up some storm and the agent called me to say that there was going to be some meetings about it yesterday morning.
Since I never heard anything, I'm assuming the solution didn't involve me working with them and agent can't be bothered to call. He'd call me if there was any work / money there.

Is it worth it for me to try and get the contract formally terminated? As it stands now, it seems to define things I need to do, like maintain indemnity insurance without providing any money.

I'd have to read it again, but I don't think there's a provision explicitly stated to allow me to terminate the contract.

[psychocandy]

So you're contract via agency of course was with middleman consultancy working on their clients site? Is this right?

I've worked like this before and generally the end client has no say in anything and its the consultancy who do all this.

But, they're upset - so what? You might still not get the gig or, at worst, you might have kicked up a nice tulip storm and someone who deserves it for causing this mess, has been found out.

[Antman]

The business model is based on keeping the different parties in the dark.

You'd think that it'd be ripe for disruption....

[NotAllThere]

Let's hope so. Unless the Middle layer consultancy is so angry at me for exposing whatever business was going on that they will refuse to work with me.

Ïf they can still make a profit on the deal, they'll work work with you.

[radish2008]

You might want to read your contract. It probably has a clause in it about not discussing your contract with the client.

Since you have discussed it and the client has now discussed it with the consultancy, you might be in a bit of trouble.

I've never seen or had such a clause in any of my contracts and how enforceable would it be ?

The client has power over the agency and the agency has power over the contractor - some of my clients have asked what rate I'm on and I've told some of them. They have a right to know if they are being screwed over.

[hairymouse]

But the client has confirmed otherwise to you now? Or a different piece of work? Sounds increasingly like the agent has binned you for reasons that are purely theirs and nothing to do with the client i.e. the rate and that's why they are upset about you telling the client. If it is just that there is a good chance the client could strong arm the agent and get everything back on board. Fingers crossed.

Let's hope so. Unless the Middle layer consultancy is so angry at me for exposing whatever business was going on that they will refuse to work with me.

Ordinarily, I would feel sorry for peeing in everyone's cornflakes but this agent wasted 4 full days of my time including all the time I spent submitting paperwork.

[northernladuk]

That could be an issue. I wonder if it matters that the contract was never really implemented since I was told immediately after signing it that there was no work. The agent told me that the gig was off. Funnily enough, they still onboarded me and still send me automated emails asking me to fill in a timesheet.

But the client has confirmed otherwise to you now? Or a different piece of work? Sounds increasingly like the agent has binned you for reasons that are purely theirs and nothing to do with the client i.e. the rate and that's why they are upset about you telling the client. If it is just that there is a good chance the client could strong arm the agent and get everything back on board. Fingers crossed.

[hairymouse]

You don't say LOL. It's a commercial agreement between you and your agency and is non of the clients business. It's likely it's exposed the agency's rip of margin and the client isn't overly pleased with them either and some kind of tulip storm is going on. More often than not nothing good comes from passing commercially/contractually sensitive information on the client. Be careful about doing it in future.

That said in this particular case, where the rate appears to be the problem here, you have nothing really to lose and might actually get something out of it.

I take it you didn't start an IPSE claim in the meantime?

No, I'm not a member of IPSE. Not for any reason other than I hadn't heard of it until this thread.

You are right, I normally wouldn't give that information to ClientCo, for this very reason.

[hairymouse]

You might want to read your contract. It probably has a clause in it about not discussing your contract with the client.

Since you have discussed it and the client has now discussed it with the consultancy, you might be in a bit of trouble.

That could be an issue. I wonder if it matters that the contract was never really implemented since I was told immediately after signing it that there was no work. The agent told me that the gig was off. Funnily enough, they still onboarded me and still send me automated emails asking me to fill in a timesheet.

[northernladuk]

Now it seems that there is a bunch of back and forth between Clientco, the agency who signed me up and the middleman consultancy. Middleman consultancy is apparently angry that I told Clientco my daily rate. ?

You don't say LOL. It's a commercial agreement between you and your agency and is non of the clients business. It's likely it's exposed the agency's rip of margin and the client isn't overly pleased with them either and some kind of tulip storm is going on. More often than not nothing good comes from passing commercially/contractually sensitive information on the client. Be careful about doing it in future.

That said in this particular case, where the rate appears to be the problem here, you have nothing really to lose and might actually get something out of it.

I take it you didn't start an IPSE claim in the meantime?

[vwdan]

You might want to read your contract. It probably has a clause in it about not discussing your contract with the client.

Since you have discussed it and the client has now discussed it with the consultancy, you might be in a bit of trouble.

And what trouble would that be? "Breach of contract" isn't some automatic offence - they'd need to demonstrate a loss etc. OP isn't working and his contract is essentially over anyway - I don't think they'd stand a cat in hells chance of getting anywhere with that. Although doing it in writing probably wasn't ideal.