Temporary worker’s rights

TeenNutt

I have been a temporary worker for the same company for over 5 years. I do not have a Fixed Term Contract. My temporary contract has and continues to be renewed either quarterly, half-yearly and on one occasion was renewed for 9 months. I would like to know if I should be offered either a Fixed Term Contract or Permanent contract considering my length of service.

tacpot12

No, there is no obligation on the company to offer you either a longer Fixed Term Contract or a Permanent Contract. There is an obligation on them to ensure that you can apply for such roles if they have them. They are breaking the law if they do not provide you with access to these roles.

Note that if you are successful in securing a permanent role, if you are employed through an agency, the agency's contract with the company might entitle them to charge a fee for having introduced you to the company. I would not suggest that you offer to pay this fee to secure a role - there is enough advantage to hiring you permanently for the employer to absorb this fee. 

If you haven't already let someone know that you would like to become a permanent employee at the company, I would do this as soon as you can - it would be insensitive to do it at a time when the business is struggling or they are making redundancies, but once the coast is clear, make sure someone knows you want to be permanent. It might never happen, but it is more likely to happen if someone knows that it is what you want. You can point out there is a benefit of hiring you permanently which is that they will avoid all the administration of having to renew your contract every few months. 

General_Grant

TeenNutt said:

I have been a temporary worker for the same company for over 5 years. I do not have a Fixed Term Contract. My temporary contract has and continues to be renewed either quarterly, half-yearly and on one occasion was renewed for 9 months. I would like to know if I should be offered either a Fixed Term Contract or Permanent contract considering my length of service.

Can you confirm that your contracts are direct with the company and not via an intermediary like an employment agency?  I think that is what you are saying but tacpot12 has introduced the idea of an agency.

Are all those contracts continuous, that is without a gap of a week (including two Saturdays) between them?  Do they all show the same first date of continuous employment?

How much notice does the employer have to give you to terminate the contract?

Pro rata do you receive the same amount of paid holiday as a "permanent" employee?