Agency calls us in then sends us striaght home

Morlock

TmanX wrote: »

They can get away with doing what they want to the workers due to the influx of the eastern european workers who are willing to accept worse treatment and can be exploited more easily. So if you make a stand against poor treatment they'll just replace you with Lukasz who will work for less money, 7 days a week, who accepts worse treatment or doesn't know his rights and doesn't have the language skills to complain even if he does feel he is being treated unfairly.

In my experience, a lot of foreign workers have better English language skills than indigenous people. Perhaps that is why they seem to be offered jobs over other workers.

I have noticed that a lot of English adults cannot differentiate when using 'of' and 'have', 'there' and 'they're' and don't know when to use 'a' or 'an' properly. This kind of semi-literate use of basic language puts employers off employing potential candidates.

TmanX

Morlock wrote: »

In my experience, a lot of foreign workers have better English language skills than indigenous people. Perhaps that is why they seem to be offered jobs over other workers.

I have noticed that a lot of English adults cannot differentiate when using 'of' and 'have', 'there' and 'they're' and don't know when to use 'a' or 'an' properly. This kind of semi-literate use of basic language puts employers off employing potential candidates.

I agree that some british people say 'borrow' when they mean 'leant' or completely miss the word 'the' out of their sentences but for low paid work recruitment agencies don't care about these things. They often give you a literacy and numeracy test that an infant school child could do. It's not an exaggeration to say that some workers can barely speak english. This is not a pop at foreign workers because I would probably do the same as them in there position, and I'm also aware that there are some lazy British people who are unreliable and only have themselves to blame for being eternally unemployed. My point was that due to the influx of labour into the British labour market agencies now have more power to exploit their workers due to the fact they can be more easily replaced, especially by people who have lower expectations of what is expected from an employer due to their less privileged backgrounds.

dawyldthing

i used to do agency work and used to get 2 hours pay if we went in and weren't needed. I agree though you get messed around a lot and its very give and take work and not always constant.

fretlessjazzbass

Equal Consideration.
If you 'verbally' accept an assignment your agency gives you and then the shift is cancelled within a certain time period, the agency are at liberty to remunerate you with part payment of that cancelled shift. This i understand is part binding because you have made a verbal agreement with your agency by making yourself available for that period of time. Unfortunately for the agreement to be fully binding you need to email or record your conversation to the agency with your acceptance of that shift. As with any basic contract (law) procedure, there has to be documented proof of the offer between the two parties for it to be completely lawful and binding.
‘All’ contracts have to abide by several mandatory stipulations for them to become legally binding. Equal consideration is one of these required stipulations.
1. You have accepted the agency’s offer of work.
2. Under their terms and conditions you can not work for anyone else whilst you have accepted their offer of work.
3. They cancel your shift with no adherence of any acceptable statutory time period of notice to be given.
4. You receive no remuneration.
5. The Agency has breeched its own terms & conditions through lack of equal consideration.

There is a fine line of ‘biting the hand that feed you’ to one of being ‘slapped into submission by the hand that feeds you’!

‘Equal consideration’: Oxford Dictionary of Law (Seventh edition)