Been made perm after 7 months through agency. Pay has gone up?

[Martins]

Hi there forumites,
I've been working for my employer for around 8 months now. The first 7 were through an employment agency but I was offered a perm contract last month. On the temp contract I was on £7.25 p/h, 35 h/pw. Now on salary, I'm on 1336.58 p/m (arond £8.8 p/h), which is a considerable pay rise.

My employer does hire people directly, who start on this salary, and we do exactly the same job (work in same teams, have same targets etcs.).
We were always told perm staff don't get paid more which they clearly do.
This is illegal now surely?
If so, who should I speak to?

Thank you for any help.

[leclerc]

Re: Been made perm after 7 months through agency. Pay has gone up?

It's not illegal to pay a temp less money than a permanent member of staff. As you can imagine the employer pays the employment agency a lot more money that you actually receive, usually 2 or 3 times the hourly rate. The employment agency sets the pay and not the place of work so therefore they have the right to pay you whatever salary or hourly rate that they choose.

There is no case on this one so I would say, congratulations on the new job but you have no redress on the company you work for or the agency you worked for unless it was under the National Minimum wage(which from the pay scale above it was not).

[Martins]

Re: Been made perm after 7 months through agency. Pay has gone up?

Thanks for the reply there. I thought the law changed last year so that agency worker pay had to meet perm worker pay after 12 weeks in the job. Assumed this meant take home pay of the worker, but I must have misunderstood.
Cheers again!

[leclerc]

Re: Been made perm after 7 months through agency. Pay has gone up?

Martins, hold on a minute I want a second opinion and I'll give a shout to militant for one:

The DirectGov appears to support you provided that from 1st October 2011 that you work for 12 weeks(time starts from 1st October 2011) and that it is continual in the same job.

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employme...cies/DG_198917

[Martins]

Re: Been made perm after 7 months through agency. Pay has gone up?

Thanks leclerc. That's what I read in the first place to give me that idea.
Not sure really who to approach about this if it turns out my employer is acting illegally. There's a fair few agency workers here and a LOT of ex staff who would be affected. (It's a decent job but has very high turn around for some reason). Most employees are/were temp-to-perm.

[miliitant]

Re: Been made perm after 7 months through agency. Pay has gone up?

you are correct on the agency workers directive

if an employee has been working for 12 weeks or more then the agency workers is entitled to the same terms and conditions as the salaried staff

if you are working through an agency then it is the agency who has to make your salary up, not the employer as your contract is with the agency

remember, its 12 weeks as to your shift, regular as clockwork, just like a normal member of staff

you need to speak to the agency on an informal basis to begin with and ask for an explanation
this is covered under section 13 employment rights act, unlawful deduction of wages

as its do do with wages, their is no 2 year qualifying period of working but three months less a day to bring a claim to an employment tribunal from the time you stopped working for the agency

[miliitant]

Re: Been made perm after 7 months through agency. Pay has gone up?

an agency try to get around this by just recruiting on a three month fixed term contacts, wait 11 weeks, then off for a week, then hire again on another three month contract

but this is not the case as you worked for 7 months solid