Agency Workers Receive Pay And Conditions Boost

[gadget]

You're missing the point.

Employers don't like employing people as permanent employees because of the risk/liability of doing so.

If you make agency employees the same in terms of risk/liability, employers won't want to employ them either.

The result will be employers trying to do all they can to not employ people.They'll outsource abroad, they'll automate, or they may simply not take on business. People who might have been given a job will now not get one.

Sure, and currently employers absolutely LOVE paying wages for people they don't really need.

As has already been stated employers using temps to get around employment law will probably now hire permanent workers. I don't see how that is going to cause economic disaster (unless you're a temp agency).

Sure a few unprofitable jobs may be lost but i don't think it'll be significant.

[Georgia O'Keeffe]

Utter utter rubbish. Companies can hire employees for 1 year, soon to be 2 years, with about zero risk, and fire them extremely easily.

Employers preferred temps because they could avoid those pesky laws on pay, sick pay, holiday time, and maternity pay. It made them cheaper. It had about ****** all to do with the risk of taking on workers.

given these are in two words business risk, then you clearly have no clue what you are actually saying with such a fundamental contradiction in less than 3 lines, business risk is nothing more or less than additional cost which is nothing more than additional risk to a business.

But as i said before whilst i think it is collectively more damaging to the majority it is supposedly meant to protect, in reality my real problem with it is it is clearly another cross to bear for small business so that large businesses can gain greater advantage through economies of scale. As if having the tax advantage of debt and access to it against lack of funding, the regulation of limited liability via a corporate structure against having to mortgage your LimLiab away etc isnt enough this can do nothing but harm small business with additional cost that has a far bigger inroad in margin to the point you refuse to employ as it is a smaller opportunity cost than the business risks you highlight arent risks.

Yet no doubt you will happily bang on about the fascism that has developed whilst patting the state on the back for implementing it, its almost despairing how easy it is for the state to micromanage preference/differentiation and ultimately economic slavery with such an unrealistic population on how the world and people interaction and trade actually work

Edited December 24, 2011 by Tamara De Lempicka

[Butthead]

Utter utter rubbish. Companies can hire employees for 1 year, soon to be 2 years, with about zero risk, and fire them extremely easily.

Employers preferred temps because they could avoid those pesky laws on pay, sick pay, holiday time, and maternity pay. It made them cheaper. It had about ****** all to do with the risk of taking on workers.

You've called my point rubbish, then agreed with it

The risk of employing people is the liabilities resulting from rules on sick pay, maternity pay.

[LowestoftBoy]

I was once a "Temp" worker in a factory working for just above minimum wage and having 12 days plus 8 days bank per year. No sick pay. No pension. No security at all. Treated like scum by the "perms" even though I was doing the same job. All I could see was that I was basically subsidising the wages and T&Cs of the permanent staff. I spent very little of any disposable income I had because I did not know if I was going to be in a job one day to the next. Great for the economy, that. All the time I was searching for a permanent job elsewhere. They trained me up, one to one, on CNC router programming whilst still a temp. Must've cost them a small fortune. Took 4 months. Then, I found a better job and left. I'd have stayed had I been permanent. Ha ******ing ha!

They've shut down now.

[Nuggets Mahoney]

Every increase in regulation leads to a decrease in employer will to employ - no exceptions. If you need greater employment the last thing you need is more regulation.

Based on what I've seen in other countries, especially Italy, I believe you raise a fair point which advocates of increased legislation should address

Maybe I've missed it, but what I haven't seen from you is an explanation of how minimising legislation would not lead to some kind of developing world sweatshop style economy. Or are you OK with that?

Personally I'm not. We currently use a lot of machines and a lot of oil and if we can't deliver a decent standard of living to workers on lower rates of pay something needs replacing. It's not a question of being all fluffy. If at any point we're reduced to living in a shire horse based economy with no automation and no fossil fuels I'll accept that some people working a full week have to live like sh1t. But currently we don't

[Butthead]

I was once a "Temp" worker in a factory working for just above minimum wage and having 12 days plus 8 days bank per year. No sick pay. No pension. No security at all. Treated like scum by the "perms" even though I was doing the same job. All I could see was that I was basically subsidising the wages and T&Cs of the permanent staff. I spent very little of any disposable income I had because I did not know if I was going to be in a job one day to the next. Great for the economy, that. All the time I was searching for a permanent job elsewhere. They trained me up, one to one, on CNC router programming whilst still a temp. Must've cost them a small fortune. Took 4 months. Then, I found a better job and left. I'd have stayed had I been permanent. Ha ******ing ha!

They've shut down now.

Well done. That's effectively the market in action, everyone can and should look for the best opportunity they can find.

I'd suggest that the fact you were in work made it easier to get the job you moved to, you could demonstrate employability and reliability for example plus perhaps some transferrable skills? So what happens to people who now can't get temp jobs because employers do all they can to avoid offering them...? (Not aimed at you LowestoftBoy, at the "up the workers" brigade).

[alexw]

OK, let's take your points and extend them a little. You think more worker rights are a good thing, so how about:

Making the minimum wage £10 per hour for all ages

Granting 18 months maternity pay and 6 months paternity pay

Insisiting on sick pay being 12 months full pay, plus another 12 months half pay, with the job being kept open

Would implementing those be a good thing for workers? Of course! How lovely to live in a world where workers are really cared for, earn a good wage and everything is soft and fluffy.

But how many businesses would lay people off or close entirely if the above was enacted?

Every increase in regulation leads to a decrease in employer will to employ - no exceptions. If you need greater employment the last thing you need is more regulation.

Please show where i have advocated any of the above.

[Butthead]

Please show where i have advocated any of the above.

You haven't. I'm taking your (and others) views that more worker rights are a good thing and showing a clear example of when they wouldn't be. From that you might see that increasing worker rights has consequences, and perhaps there are consequences to this legislation that you haven't considered...

[LowestoftBoy]

Well done. That's effectively the market in action, everyone can and should look for the best opportunity they can find.

I'd suggest that the fact you were in work made it easier to get the job you moved to, you could demonstrate employability and reliability for example plus perhaps some transferrable skills? So what happens to people who now can't get temp jobs because employers do all they can to avoid offering them...? (Not aimed at you LowestoftBoy, at the "up the workers" brigade).

The short termism of the temp contract cost that firm more in the long run. Loyalty works both ways. I had a dislike for my employer which potentially encouraged me to not give a ******.

In wood machining, workers really do need to give an extra ******, otherwise most product turns out quite shit.

Maybe that's why they shut?

Maybe the new laws are designed to also help protect companies from their management.

[alexw]

given these are in two words business risk, then you clearly have no clue what you are actually saying with such a fundamental contradiction in less than 3 lines, business risk is nothing more or less than additional cost which is nothing more than additional risk to a business.

But as i said before whilst i think it is collectively more damaging to the majority it is supposedly meant to protect, in reality my real problem with it is it is clearly another cross to bear for small business so that large businesses can gain greater advantage through economies of scale. As if having the tax advantage of debt and access to it against lack of funding, the regulation of limited liability via a corporate structure against having to mortgage your LimLiab away etc isnt enough this can do nothing but harm small business with additional cost that has a far bigger inroad in margin to the point you refuse to employ as it is a smaller opportunity cost than the business risks you highlight arent risks.

Yet no doubt you will happily bang on about the fascism that has developed whilst patting the state on the back for implementing it, its almost despairing how easy it is for the state to micromanage preference/differentiation and ultimately economic slavery with such an unrealistic population on how the world and people interaction and trade actually work

In the context the poster i was replying to posted, he was suggesting that it was the permanence of the employee that was the reason for preferring temp workers. My post was in the same context that that was and is a load of rubbish.

[Nuggets Mahoney]

You haven't. I'm taking your (and others) views that more worker rights are a good thing and showing a clear example of when they wouldn't be. From that you might see that increasing worker rights has consequences, and perhaps there are consequences to this legislation that you haven't considered...

Improvements in technology are steadily shifting the balance of negotiating power away from labour towards capital. Some people seem to think that increased legislation will help even the situation out a little. What's your suggested solution?

[Butthead]

Based on what I've seen in other countries, especially Italy, I believe you raise a fair point which advocates of increased legislation should address

Maybe I've missed it, but what I haven't seen from you is an explanation of how minimising legislation would not lead to some kind of developing world sweatshop style economy. Or are you OK with that?

Personally I'm not. We currently use a lot of machines and a lot of oil and if we can't deliver a decent standard of living to workers on lower rates of pay something needs replacing. It's not a question of being all fluffy. If at any point we're reduced to living in a shire horse based economy with no automation and no fossil fuels I'll accept that some people working a full week have to live like sh1t. But currently we don't

Minimising regulation applies not only to employment law but health and safety, planning, local taxation and more. If you minimise regulation you remove barriers to entry so it becomes possible to compete where it wasn't before (or more specifically, isn't now).

Think about someone who's in a position similar to the one LowestoftBoy describes. He's working for a company, he has skills that are applicable to that type of business, but feels undervalued. In a low regulation environment he can set up a competitor business, perhaps with other staff who feel undervalued, and if he's truly capable of doing a better job he'll eventually displace his previous employer. However if he tries that now he'll find himself weighed down by rules and red tape that make it extremely difficult to setup and compete.

There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible. - Henry Ford.

The persuit of greater quality, more efficiency, more output leads to increased wealth, not less.

[Butthead]

Maybe the new laws are designed to also help protect companies from their management.

Maybe, but that in itself is a market distortion. Poorly managed companies should fail.

[Georgia O'Keeffe]

The short termism of the temp contract cost that firm more in the long run. Loyalty works both ways. I had a dislike for my employer which potentially encouraged me to not give a ******.

In wood machining, workers really do need to give an extra ******, otherwise most product turns out quite shit.

Maybe that's why they shut?

Maybe the new laws are designed to also help protect companies from their management.

Free trade protects companies from management, sh!t ones go under and good ones thrive and the good employees are taken on by the good companies with good management or strive to work for new companies that have to be even better than the good ones, modern laws and subtle behavioural forces such as taxation in general protect shit management from the consequences of being sh!t which is why we are where we are and the sh!ttest management of all has come top down from the people elected to implement these laws, who not suprisingly are protected with Special Rights from their own sh!t management

[Butthead]

Improvements in technology are steadily shifting the balance of negotiating power away from labour towards capital. Some people seem to think that increased legislation will help even the situation out a little. What's your suggested solution?

Develop new industries for people to be employed in. Do this by allowing entrepreneurs to startup and innovate and make it easy for them to employ and develop people.

[Georgia O'Keeffe]

Improvements in technology are steadily shifting the balance of negotiating power away from labour towards capital. Some people seem to think that increased legislation will help even the situation out a little. What's your suggested solution?

its patently obvious that where taxation is focused and state enforced scarcity of resource is continuing to shift the balance in favour of Capital over Labour (Labour has been having its throat stamped on for decades by the very same state everyone wants more of which they are duly getting (not suprisingly to the continuing greater detriment of those asking for it) whats worse is its not even in favour of productive Capital but in favour of Resource Monopolising Capital

Edited December 24, 2011 by Tamara De Lempicka

[Nuggets Mahoney]

Minimising regulation applies not only to employment law but health and safety, planning, local taxation and more. If you minimise regulation you remove barriers to entry so it becomes possible to compete where it wasn't before (or more specifically, isn't now).

The practical problem is, of course, that those state-sanctioned millstones and barriers to entry currently aren't going anywhere

Consequently, the disgruntled, potentially under-valued employee has his choices limited artificially and may be obliged to work for an exploitative employer

In this kind of environment increased employment protection is a form of compensation for being screwed over by all those other impediments you refer to

Edited December 24, 2011 by Charlton Peston

[wonderpup]

There's nothing more comical than a bunch of self proclaimed 'risk takers' whining about the fact that employing people is risky.

Which is it guys- do you deserve the rewards because you are the risk takers, or not?

Between the bankers whining for their bailouts, the bondholders whining for zero risk investment and the employers whining for risk free business growth it's getting to the point where a good old fashioned entrepreneur would be like a breath of fresh air.

[Nuggets Mahoney]

Nope its patently obvious that where taxation is focused and state enforced scarcity of resource is continuing to shift the balance in favour of Capital (its been happening for decades) whats worse is its not even in favour of productive Capital but in favour of Resource Monopolising Capital

Ooops my bad. I should have said 'increased employment protection legislation' not just 'increased legislation'

and however that legislation works out some people (present company excluded) do labour under the impression that it will help somehow

Edited December 24, 2011 by Charlton Peston

[LowestoftBoy]

Free trade protects companies from management, sh!t ones go under and good ones thrive and the good employees are taken on by the good companies with good management or strive to work for new companies that have to be even better than the good ones, modern laws and subtle behavioural forces such as taxation in general protect shit management from the consequences of being sh!t which is why we are where we are and the sh!ttest management of all has come top down from the people elected to implement these laws, who not suprisingly are protected with Special Rights from their own sh!t management

My gut instinct agrees with this.

Shame this free market thing doesn't seem to apply to the financial services industries.

[alexw]

Minimising regulation applies not only to employment law but health and safety, planning, local taxation and more. If you minimise regulation you remove barriers to entry so it becomes possible to compete where it wasn't before (or more specifically, isn't now).

Think about someone who's in a position similar to the one LowestoftBoy describes. He's working for a company, he has skills that are applicable to that type of business, but feels undervalued. In a low regulation environment he can set up a competitor business, perhaps with other staff who feel undervalued, and if he's truly capable of doing a better job he'll eventually displace his previous employer. However if he tries that now he'll find himself weighed down by rules and red tape that make it extremely difficult to setup and compete.

There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible. - Henry Ford.

The persuit of greater quality, more efficiency, more output leads to increased wealth, not less.

What your missing is that this is nolonger possible in our current economic paradigm without it being a race to the bottom.

What your advocating will eventually lead to Calcutta style living conditions for the majority of the population. Because on a T&C's basis that is currently the only way we will be able to compete given that nations nolonger compete on the basis of comparative advantage but on an absolute one.

Personally i'd rather not live in a slum.

The solution is not to join the race to the bottom, which is what you in reality are advocating, but to change the paradigm.

[Butthead]

What your missing is that this is nolonger possible in our current economic paradigm without it being a race to the bottom.

What your advocating will eventually lead to Calcutta style living conditions for the majority of the population. Because on a T&C's basis that is currently the only way we will be able to compete given that nations nolonger compete on the basis of comparative advantage but on an absolute one.

Personally i'd rather not live in a slum.

The solution is not to join the race to the bottom, which is what you in reality are advocating, but to change the paradigm.

I'm not missing the point about massive reform needed elsewhere and I accept that would certainly be required. I don't agree that I'm advocating a race to the bottom.

I don't think we should decide that because we've messed up with having too many rules we should mess up some more by adding futher regulation to compensate.

I can't see anythink like what I propose happening in the UK or Europe anytime soon. The US on the other hand has more hope, because what I'm advocating is essentially what Ron Paul is talking about (hopefully it comes across that way).

[MongerOfDoom]

So what are they goona do then:

a) hire perms instead - well that a win for the economy, though not for the vested interest sponsoring the article.

2) do nothing and turn new business down - cutting off your nose to spite your face

Stupid arguement if ever there was!

tim

Or move outside the EU. The difficulty is that an increasing number of things can no longer be done profitably here.

The winners are the low-skilled who already have a job. The losers are the low-skilled who are unlikely to be ever employed because they simply cannot create sufficient value to justify the cost of employing them. Oh, and the taxpayers paying their benefits.

[alexw]

Or move outside the EU. The difficulty is that an increasing number of things can no longer be done profitably here.

The winners are the low-skilled who already have a job. The losers are the low-skilled who are unlikely to be ever employed because they simply cannot create sufficient value to justify the cost of employing them. Oh, and the taxpayers paying their benefits.

Its got nothing to do with the intrinsic value employees create. What a person earns nowadays has little if anything to do with that, though the VI's love to push this argument as it makes them seem to be on the 'right' side. It should be pretty obvious by now that for the low-skilled under our current economic paradigm, their earnings are a function of how easily they can be replaced by cheaper labour. And with places like the Philippines, china, and bangladesh available those opportunities are many.

The UK currently has the highest levels of earnings inequality that it has seen in many many decades. We need substantially less earnings inequality not the level we currently have or more. The solution is not to build our own internal bangladesh but to change the economic paradigm.

Edited December 24, 2011 by alexw

[obidiah]

.

Just a few words from someone who has lurked on the site for a while and who is affected by this EU rubbish,i have worked as a hgv driver for a large supermarket(making life taste bitter)via an agency on a paye basis for some 6 years at two sites in Essex and Herts,since the 12 week period started in October i have been pressured by the agency that i should become self employed via a dodgy umbrella scheme or otherwise i will not be able to work beyond Christmas eve but after looking at the pros and cons decided i could not comply with IR35 and given that i am 59 and receiving a small pension decided against this route only to be told that i will no longer be able to work at the Co because they are using the Swedish derogation opt out to avoid paying the same rates as there own drivers.

Drivers for the Co are on a salary but it equates to about 14-15 pound an hour whereas i was getting a tenner and not getting a paid break period as they do,i did call ACAS but they said that i am not the first to call over this subject and until a precedent has been set with a court case they cannot help.ah well so i will try the Jobcentre to see what they know and can say that was an eye opener to be told by a spotty little 18 year old that they dont deal with that sort of enquiry but we can get you signed up now for JSA,what stopped me throttling the little git i never know,so Mr King have a nice Christmas you &^%.

As far as i am aware i think only one national chain are going to give pay parity to agency drivers.