Case law | How is agency worker status changing? (Royal Mail)

The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has recently ruled that individual workers for Royal Mail are indeed agency workers.

Agency workers have the right to be treated no less favourably when compared to those who are employed by the organisation, as per the Agency Workers regulations 2010. This means they have the same right to basic employment and working conditions, including bonuses, annual leave and paid time off for antenatal appointments, after the agency worker has completed a 12-week qualifying period.

An appeal lodged by Angard Staffing Solutions Ltd and Royal Mail Group Ltd against the EAT’s decision that Mr D Kocur (and others) who worked there, was an agency worker, has been dismissed.

Solicitors, Irwin Mitchell, are currently pursuing a Group Action Litigation on behalf of 67 agency workers, in their employment tribunal claims against Angard Staffing Solutions Ltd (who had been engaged as agents for Royal Mail to find workers) and Royal Mail Group Ltd on the grounds of the unequal treatment of the agency workers Angard Staffing Solutions supplied.

Angard Staffing Solutions and Royal Mail Group had appealed against this decision and contended that Mr Kocur was not an agency worker and therefore not entitled to the same rights as other employees. Mr Kocur and the other Claimants continued to maintain that the Tribunal’s decision was correct.

Judge Auerbach advised that the Employment Tribunal had thoroughly looked at all the factors and had correctly interpreted case law.

It was stated that: “The defined periods of work to provide cover is fatal to the argument that it is not temporary.” And: “The Tribunal went on rightly to conclude that there was no reason to suppose that the Directive was not intended to apply where the agency supplied workers to only one hirer.”

The EAT concluded: “For all of these reasons the appeal is dismissed.”