I see tonight that BMW have terminated 850 jobs at their Mini factory.
I also understand that these are all agency/contractors.
In my industry (IT) contractors are paid (say) three times the going rate for permanent staff - and they have no security - they are contractors.
When times are hard - they are the first to go.
Is this different from other industries - how does the rate for contractors differ from the rate for permanent staff?
Err in this case 'agency' will mean Manpower or Pertemps labourers - they will probably get little over minimum wages whilst the agency gets another third on top in return for doing payslip, collecting ni taxes etc and for the company being able to drop the worker at the drop of a hat - like this.
last time I employed an office girl, I was looking to pay around £6 an hour and was going to have to sort out all the payroll myself and pay NI employers contribution on top bring it to around £6.50 an hour (iirc).
Alfred Marks sent one round at £7.50 an hour all in, all I had to do was sign her time sheet and pay two weeks in arrears!
(Differs vastly from wehn I did some temping 25 years ago and agency were getting £7.50 and giving me £3.50 - I saw the paperwork
In lower skilled jobs, temps are paid much less than perms, there is no notice given at all. You can be telephoned 2 minutes after you get home off your last shift and be told you aren't needed anymore. My husband worked as a temp for a global printing company for 5 years, through Adecco - he never got a pay rise in all that time (in fact he got a £1/hour pay cut). It's a way for companies to employ people cheaply even for the long term and get rid of them at a second's notice. Sometimes he would bus the 18 miles to work and be told to go home because he wasn't needed, 10 minutes after arriving (with no pay of course). You also get treated like a piece of crap by permanent workers and bosses. If you answer back, that's your last shift.
The agency (their employer) pay their wages, so why did the agency not tell the workers they were not wanted. Surely that is the correct process. The filming shows the union leaders informing them. I also assume they would not have been allowed back on site for fear of retribution. So be warned, check your new mini's wheel nuts.
judith gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:
Is it 1999 again?
1999? ahhh, happy days. No. it's just someone who doesn't see NI (employers contrib), pensions, sick pay, holiday pay, liability insurance, accountancy fees, training, time "on the bench", TAX/VAT/company paperwork, invoicing or having to deal with agencies who "forget" to pay you.
But I don't have a new mini. And neither has anyone else. That's the whole bloody point. People aren't buying them.
I am not sure of your point.
If the rate was three times the normal rate in 1999 - then yes it is.
they are sales only dropped by 45% so someone is.........clever dickie.
The agency employs them - they aren't sacked at all. They are still employed by the agency. That the agency may have no more work for them is neither here nor there - there is nothing in any temp agency contract that says they will provide any work at all. That is why they cannot claim redundancy, and why they won't get a P45 unless they ask the agency for it.
More like twice when you take all on costs, NI, holidays, agency margins etc. into account, but it was nice while it lasted (81-97).
Correct - and don't winge. IME you almost always have to work the notice period, whereas permies get paid off. Do this and clients invite you back - more than half of mine did.
At the top end of IT rates are high and agency margins are relatively low (say 20%), and the contractor can be in the driving seat (I usually wrote my own contracts (my solicitor wrote the first one) or didn't have one!).
Down the bottom end of admin and factory work charge out rates are low (although still slightly more than permies), but the agency margin is high often 50%, meaning that the [sub]-contractor is on substantially less than the permies working next to him - often near minimum wage - just have a look in a high st agency window.
I suspect the rates for skilled motor assembly workers is somewhere in the middle, but for the unions to suddenly call for them to be protected, when they spend most of their time trying to get contractors sacked is hypocritical indeed!
Well except that the government facilitated the following: -
One can almost view the numerous recent huge IT disasters in the public sector as a form of divine retribution.
"R. Mark Clayton" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@bt.com:
Except of course it is not well bribed socialist ministers that suffer but yet again the public.
I think those are more of a 'universal constant' than just a current issue..
The DVLA was a long running disaster known as "the Joke Factory" in the trade press for decades.
The disasters have become worse - ID cards, passports, NHS etc., most of these are just overblown in scale and complexity, but perhaps the worst was the national firearms register. This is relatively small application - few million shotguns and about 500k bullet firing guns - so much so that the whole thing could easily run on my PC, moreover subject compliance is not an issue - any non compliance and you have to hand in your weapon(s). Despite this the project is years late, miles over budget and (last I heard) still not working and perhaps worst of all the number of firearms illegally in circulation has vastly increased.
More like twice, and no holiday or sick pay effectively reduces that further.
But yes, quite a bit more, in order to compensate for the lack of security.
IR35 is very nearly a voluntary tax.
I carried on contracting for 8 years after it came in, and never paid any IR35 tax. I *did* get investigated for it by the IR one year (which included checking all my contracts back to the date it came in
- seven of hem at the time), and they decided I was not liable.
I took a permie role 18 months ago, mainly because of the stress caused to my wife by never knowing what I would be doing in a month or two, and after having spent almost two years at one point working away from home.
In article , Alex Heney writes
Aye, right . . .
So did I, and I survived a contrived "PAYE compliance check", but try getting a mainstream PLC to vary its terms to support your (my) true business to business relationship in my industry and you'll get short shrift (YMMV). I avoided IR35 by being fortunate enough to be able to pick and choose my clients which is not available to all, but all my previous clients have been true business to business.
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