Being paid less than others

antiaust

Hi 

I've been working 1 day a week through an agency since May on £14ph, without explanation increased rate to £18ph at beginning of October. Which is obviously good news, but I have just found out that others have been paid £18 since July. 

Is this OK? I presume the customer (Royal Mail) pays the agency the same, so would i have a case to get increase backdated? Many thanks for thoughts/advice.

pinkshoes

antiaust said:

Hi 

I've been working 1 day a week through an agency since May on £14ph, without explanation increased rate to £18ph at beginning of October. Which is obviously good news, but I have just found out that others have been paid £18 since July. 

Is this OK? I presume the customer (Royal Mail) pays the agency the same, so would i have a case to get increase backdated? Many thanks for thoughts/advice.

As they have paid you over the minimum wage and have not paid you less for any discrimination reasons, then you are not entitled to this backdated. It was up to you to negotiate the higher wage when you started. 

Undervalued

antiaust said:

Hi 

I've been working 1 day a week through an agency since May on £14ph, without explanation increased rate to £18ph at beginning of October. Which is obviously good news, but I have just found out that others have been paid £18 since July. 

Is this OK? I presume the customer (Royal Mail) pays the agency the same, so would i have a case to get increase backdated? Many thanks for thoughts/advice.

Yes it is OK and no, you don't "have a case" for it being backdated.

Obviously you can ask and they may agree as a gesture of goodwill but there are nor "rights" to fall back on, unless the actual reason amounts to unlawful discrimination on one of the legally protected grounds such as race, gender etc.

Jillanddy

Did the agency pay you the rate that you and they agreed you would be paid? If so, you have been correctly paid. You could, of course, ask the agency for the explanation of why you have received a pay increase. So then you would have an explanation. On the other hand, as an agency worker, your employment is not exactly stable and rocking the boat may not be the best idea unless you genuinely have grounds to believe that you have been paid incorrectly or unlawfully.

Sandtree

Question asked every week... discrimination due to a protected characteristic (sex, race etc) is illegal, anything else is perfectly fine. Salaries are individually negotiated in most companies. 

Agencies either get a fixed amount and its up to them what they pay the candidate or they get a percentage uplift on what is declared as being given to the candidate (in my world its 15%-20% but tends to be more for lower paid roles). Have had plenty of times when I've negotiated that the agency sacrifice some of their percentage to me to make the deal work.

ceh209

I was going to suggest this may be to do with The Agency Worker Regulations which, roughly speaking, entitle you to the same pay as permanent employees doing the same role at the company you're temping for - but only after 12 weeks. But if you started  in May, 12 weeks would be long before October

(FWIW, where I work, the amount we pay the agency also goes up after 12 weeks because of this)

Marcon

antiaust said:

Hi 

I've been working 1 day a week through an agency since May on £14ph, without explanation increased rate to £18ph at beginning of October. Which is obviously good news, but I have just found out that others have been paid £18 since July. 

Is this OK? I presume the customer (Royal Mail) pays the agency the same, so would i have a case to get increase backdated? Many thanks for thoughts/advice.

Found out how and from whom? Sometimes the grapevine loves to embroider the facts, so it may be worth stopping to consider that you could have been told something which isn't strictly accurate.

Randall95

You are not authorized to this postdated pay because they have paid you more than the minimum wage and still haven't paid you less for any reason other than discrimination. When you first started, it was up to you to negotiate a better wage.

SusieTiple

antiaust said:

Hi 

I've been working 1 day a week through an agency since May on £14ph, without explanation increased rate to £18ph at beginning of October. Which is obviously good news, but I have just found out that others have been paid £18 since July. 

Is this OK? I presume the customer (Royal Mail) pays the agency the same, so would i have a case to get increase backdated? Many thanks for thoughts/advice.

You need to find out if the agency has simply made a mistake in your PAYE. A company does not give you pay rise out of the blue, there is always a reason behind it.