What rights do they have to complain, or to receive redundancy money?
The right to claim unfair dismissal and to receive a redundancy payment is limited to employees – and unfortunately for them, agency workers are probably not employees of BMW. Prior to an Appeal Court decision last year, there was considerable uncertainty about when agency workers might turn into employees of the company where they were actually working. However, that decision has significantly restricted such circumstances. It will now be relatively rare for an employment tribunal to agree that the agency worker has acquired employee status with the end user of their services – in this case BMW. This may apply even if the agency worker has spent several years working on behalf of a given client. An agency worker would need strong evidence about the facts of his or her case to show that an employment contract with the end user had been created. Can they complain to their employment agency? It would be necessary to look at what their contract with the agency actually said, and in partic
