You may have always thought the agency staff you have been using for years are the agency’s employees not yours but are you absolutely sure in the light of recent case law?
One such case, involved an agency worker who had been placed with Reuters for about five years, during which time he had been re-deployed to various different roles, but continued to be paid by the agency. When Reuters no longer required him he brought a number of tribunal claims against them, but they denied they were his employer. Whilst the tribunal upheld this, at appeal it was concluded that the duration of the placing and the ability to move the worker into different jobs was something more usually associated with permanent staff and the decision was reversed.
In another case where the contract stated there was no employment relationship between a worker and the Brook Street Bureau, the appeal overturned the tribunal’s acceptance of this statement on the basis that the Bureau had considerable control over the individual’s activities.
The message from these cases is that businesses need to be very clear when using agency staff, particularly long term, about the degree of control they are seen (or contracted) to have over them, in order to avoid creating an employment relationship without realising it. Remember employee rights include:
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