long term contractor, any "employee" rights?

[Aaron_H]

wondering if anyone can give me advice on any rights I may have.

 

I do work for a company (client) who pay the recruiting agency & the agency pay's an Umbrella who sort out my tax & NI, etc. & give me whats left.

 

I have been doing the same contract for the last 4 years or so.

 

I have contracted hours, but I am also forced to work within the clients policies & guidelines.

 

Over the last 12 months I seem to have been doing a lot more work than others in my area. I have asked for more money but the agency said the client said no. I have also had my overtime rates cut from 1.5x & 2x down to single rate... which is annoying.

 

Over the last year, the client have introduced a new tier (tier 2) of perm employees, I was never offered a perm. position for one of these roles - It is classed a lower grade of work, but for the pay, I would have jumped at the chance of perm employment - its less than £75 a month difference by the time I pay the umbrella their fee & pay both employers & employees NI as well as Tax - Which I would gladly trade in for more shorter days & paid holidays. Infact, If I took off my holiday entitlement, as I dont get paid, I would be worse off!

 

Up until that point I had been doing all Tier 1 & Tier 2 work - I was classed as a Hybrid, now I just do Tier 3 & a little Tier 2 (the new Tier was shoe horned between Tier 1 & 2, making the old Tier 2 to Tier 3!) which means longer days (because of travel distances), late finishes, etc. as some work can only be done outside office hours - which as you can imagine has grinded me down without having the extra few quid the overtime used to pay.

 

I work for the client 37.5 hours a week

I am not allowed to take on any "outside" work during these hours

I am to announce myself I am xxxxxx from xxxxxxxxx

[Guest Old_andrew2018]

Bump

[Aaron_H]

contracting rights seem to be a large grey area by the looks of it!

[poppynurse]

Sounds to me that you are an employee...ring ACAS and have a chat, the inland revenue may also be able to advise.