huge clawback of hours by temp agency :(

SarEl

Evilm wrote: »

Then try to get proof of the terms you signed to just in case they have found a sneaky way to get round it but I would consider a Employment Tribunal claim.

Unfortunately you cannot make a claim to an employment tribunal - they have no jurisdiction since your husband was not an employee.

This all sounds something of a mess. Generally agencies have more pieces of paper to sign than employers do, but it seems that you are saying that there was nothing. But your only recourse here is to sue the agency (since any contract was with them, not their client) through the County Court. What or how they resolve this with the client is their business - yours is with the agency.

Evilm

SarEl wrote: »

Unfortunately you cannot make a claim to an employment tribunal - they have no jurisdiction since your husband was not an employee.

This all sounds something of a mess. Generally agencies have more pieces of paper to sign than employers do, but it seems that you are saying that there was nothing. But your only recourse here is to sue the agency (since any contract was with them, not their client) through the County Court. What or how they resolve this with the client is their business - yours is with the agency.

doh! sorry for that one, forgot he was a contractor! Suing them would have to be OPs recourse!

Hammyman

simpywimpy wrote: »

OH has been working for a contracting agency since Jan and always been paid for all hours worked. Suddenly they are saying that we should only have been paid upto a limit per day and have therefore clawed back nearly £2000 from previous invoices.

Surely after all this time, and being told by email that all hours would be paid, a contract has been formed and the agency should pay up? I dont think we have signed a formal contract of employment but I still have the email where we asked about hours and was told all were being paid.

There was no warning this was going to happen, just the deduction of the final wage.

I have emailed saying I think what they did was unlawful and giving them 7 days to reply which has now passed without a response.

Any ideas of where we stand?

You're self employed if you're sending them invoices. There is "no wage" as you invoice the company so you need to stop talking about a wage to start off with as you are not an employee of the agency hence there is no contract of employment. The agency is a customer of your business. Did you have a contract from your business to the agency which stated that all hours were to be paid for?

They have also not broken employment law by making unlawful deductions from your wages because they are not wages, they are paid invoices, "accounts received".

You need to send them an invoice for the £2000 and then follow it up with a final demand and then county court if they don't pay it. At that point, you'll possibly be expected to produce a trading agreement you had between your company and the agency. In short, you ought to get prepared to write off the money as bad debt.

TO ALL THOSE WHO ARE THINKING WORKING FOR AGENCIES AS A LTD COMPANY OR VIA UMBRELLA COMPANY

This is what happens when it goes wrong and serves as a good example of how weighted against you things are. The OP is realistically looking at writing off £2000. All the laws you have that would protect you as an employee do not apply.

Zazen999

Hammyman wrote: »

This is what happens when it goes wrong and serves as a good example of how weighted against you things are. The OP is realistically looking at writing off £2000. All the laws you have that would protect you as an employee do not apply.

At the very least, if you are working for someone else on a self employed basis; you should draw up a contract of terms and conditions where you are happy with those conditions; which if you don't get paid, you can use to take them to court for the money.