Disabled on 0 hours contact suspended from work due to agency mistake

[Rreennaa]

Hello everyone

 

One year ago I started work in one of DHL sites. My employer is work agency and I am on 0 hours contract. When I registered I put an information about my disability in the agency application form. Also, right after I started work Remploy contacted my agency to remind them about their obligations as my employer (making reasonable adjustments etc). Since my ability does not affect my work (and I do not require any adjustments and I told that to the agency coordinator when they asked) everything was fine during the year

 

Buuuut...

 

On the beginning of this year DHL started recruiting for full term contracts. I applied, put information about my disability in the application form and went succesfully through assessment and interview.

 

And then the problems started.

 

To complete the paperwork necessary for making the contract DHL's recruiter contacted the agency to get the details about my disability because they should have some in their health and safely records but they had none. It turns out that the agency was supposed to ask me for a letter from my gp and ensure that someone from DHL's health and safety department will conduct risk assessment for me. And that should have been done before I started work .

Well, they did not do anything like that. And they said they missed the information about my disability in the application form. (The person who was processing the application one year ago does not work for them anymore so they can not ask him. )

 

Because of that DHL had to ask the agency to remove me from the site due to the potential risk until I get all necessary paperwork done but they made it clear they want me back as soon as possible (it was really busy time for the department I work in)

 

It took almost two weeks because my GP was on holiday but in the end I was able to go back to work And everything would be OK but:

1 I lost eleven days of work

2 I didn't get the contract

 

About the contract there should not be any problems. DHL is recruiting again and I was told I will most likely get it when they finish this round since I passed anyway.

 

But I not only lost 11 days of work but also was charged for the letter from GP. The letter was required for work so my employer should pay for it. Or at least that I was told in the family practice but the agency refused to pay for it at first. And also they told me I won't be paid for the absence

 

After couple of days they changed they mind and said they will pay for the letter and at least for the first week Of course there was no payment on my account at the time they was supposed to pay ( I am paid weekly so it should be Friday of the second week of absence.

 

After I returned from work ( Monday) I asked the lady from my agency what is going on with my money She said she has to speak with her boss because they want to cover some of those days with my holiday . I agreed to wait but I wasn't sure if they can even do that and I didn't understand why should I pay for their mistake with the holidays I acquired .So I consulted the matter with ACAS and my disability advisor.

 

ACAS consultant said I should be entitled to medical suspension payment and that I have right to use my holiday as I want. And if the agency will deduct my holidays without my consent it will be unlawful.

 

Meanwhile I got a payslip from the agency. With payment for roughly 6,5 days.

 

I went to them before my shiftb started and asked for explanation and they said they decided to use my holiday to pay for those days and add the rest to that. I informed them I am not happy with that and I want to discuss the matter later but I couldn't catch them that day

 

Next day I have got the payment stated in the payslip I went to the agency again and asked how many days of holiday I have. The answer : none . They took all 7 days I had (!) And they said I agreed for that (!) and also they took 7 days of my holidays but paid me for three remaining days but initially their boss agreed for two (!). Very nice but first it should be four days remaining not three, and second where is the payment for the letter from GP? The payslip does not explain anything.

 

I informed them about what I heard from ACAS and they ask me to write a etter to their boss

I did it and now I am waiting for his response but honestly I don't know what to think anymore. What, are my rights? What else can I do?

I am going to call ACAS again and maybe I'll get some more info but at this moment I am jus worried there is nothing I can do.

Employment Tribunal looks too expensive for me...

 

PS sorry for mistakes, I'm not native English speaker Also, sorry for the wall of text

[sangie5952]

Hello everyone

 

One year ago I started work in one of DHL sites. My employer is work agency and I am on 0 hours contract. When I registered I put an information about my disability in the agency application form. Also, right after I started work Remploy contacted my agency to remind them about their obligations as my employer (making reasonable adjustments etc). Since my ability does not affect my work (and I do not require any adjustments and I told that to the agency coordinator when they asked) everything was fine during the year

 

Buuuut...

 

On the beginning of this year DHL started recruiting for full term contracts. I applied, put information about my disability in the application form and went succesfully through assessment and interview.

 

And then the problems started.

 

To complete the paperwork necessary for making the contract DHL's recruiter contacted the agency to get the details about my disability because they should have some in their health and safely records but they had none. It turns out that the agency was supposed to ask me for a letter from my gp and ensure that someone from DHL's health and safety department will conduct risk assessment for me. And that should have been done before I started work .

Well, they did not do anything like that. And they said they missed the information about my disability in the application form. (The person who was processing the application one year ago does not work for them anymore so they can not ask him. )

 

Because of that DHL had to ask the agency to remove me from the site due to the potential risk until I get all necessary paperwork done but they made it clear they want me back as soon as possible (it was really busy time for the department I work in)

 

It took almost two weeks because my GP was on holiday but in the end I was able to go back to work And everything would be OK but:

1 I lost eleven days of work

2 I didn't get the contract

 

About the contract there should not be any problems. DHL is recruiting again and I was told I will most likely get it when they finish this round since I passed anyway.

 

But I not only lost 11 days of work but also was charged for the letter from GP. The letter was required for work so my employer should pay for it. Or at least that I was told in the family practice but the agency refused to pay for it at first. And also they told me I won't be paid for the absence

 

After couple of days they changed they mind and said they will pay for the letter and at least for the first week Of course there was no payment on my account at the time they was supposed to pay ( I am paid weekly so it should be Friday of the second week of absence.

 

After I returned from work ( Monday) I asked the lady from my agency what is going on with my money She said she has to speak with her boss because they want to cover some of those days with my holiday . I agreed to wait but I wasn't sure if they can even do that and I didn't understand why should I pay for their mistake with the holidays I acquired .So I consulted the matter with ACAS and my disability advisor.

 

ACAS consultant said I should be entitled to medical suspension payment and that I have right to use my holiday as I want. And if the agency will deduct my holidays without my consent it will be unlawful.

 

Meanwhile I got a payslip from the agency. With payment for roughly 6,5 days.

 

I went to them before my shiftb started and asked for explanation and they said they decided to use my holiday to pay for those days and add the rest to that. I informed them I am not happy with that and I want to discuss the matter later but I couldn't catch them that day

 

Next day I have got the payment stated in the payslip I went to the agency again and asked how many days of holiday I have. The answer : none . They took all 7 days I had (!) And they said I agreed for that (!) and also they took 7 days of my holidays but paid me for three remaining days but initially their boss agreed for two (!). Very nice but first it should be four days remaining not three, and second where is the payment for the letter from GP? The payslip does not explain anything.

 

I informed them about what I heard from ACAS and they ask me to write a etter to their boss

I did it and now I am waiting for his response but honestly I don't know what to think anymore. What, are my rights? What else can I do?

I am going to call ACAS again and maybe I'll get some more info but at this moment I am jus worried there is nothing I can do.

Employment Tribunal looks too expensive for me...

 

PS sorry for mistakes, I'm not native English speaker Also, sorry for the wall of text

 

That advice from ACAS is interesting. Employers certainly can tell you when you will take holiday, so that would be wrong. And since toy ate a zero hours contract, you are a worker, not an employee, and so medical dissension does not apply. On zero hours, you get paid for what you work. Nothing else. Did you actually tell ACAS that this is a zero hours contract?

 

I do think that morally the agency should pay you for their error. But I am struggling to find a legal grounds upon which they must, since the advice from ACAS, on the faced if it, appears to be totally incorrect. Your "right" is to be not paid. So you can demand your holiday back I suspect, since they didn't tell you in advance to take it, but on the other hand your will then owe them the money back.

 

I'm afraid if they play hard ball, then you will find very little support in the law, based on what you say here.

[Rreennaa]

Well I am afraid they can play the 0 hours card. The thing is during the year I worked 37,5 hours per week and suddenly " sorry no work for you because you disabled you have to prove you can work here and no, whole year of work without any accident is not a prove sorry it's warehouse and it can be dangerous for you". Seriously ? Isn't that their ******* duty to ensure my safety? And they failed to do that .They should be happy there wasn't any accident....

 

Sorry I am just so frustrated . And they still didn't pay for the letter from gp .

 

And well, that explains why I have never got response from companies I informed about my disability when applied for job. Guess it's better to keep it for myself.

[ericsbrother]

no work for you because you are disabled? If you have someonne or something to corroborate that then they will be in trouble. However, that is a different matter to the one you talk about here as you are contracted though an agency and that makes things difficult to pin down on the company using your services.

[Rreennaa]

No. They didn't say anything like that. They only said they have to confirm that I can work there (it's just weird to be told that after a year of work) and that is to ensure my safety (but that should be done before I even started work). In short I was working this whole year in potentially dangerous environment without their client (DHL) knowing about this just because they didn't they job properly.

[sangie5952]

There is no reason that you have to declare a disability before you start a job, or even afterwards. But if you fail to declare it once you date a job, then toy have little prospect of any strong evidence of a disability claim. An employer must reasonably know there is a disability before you can expect anything from them. And plenty of companies don't ask, or don't care, whether you have a disability. It would appear DHL don't as they seem to be happy to have you once this is sorted - and hardly their fault the agency didn't do the job and inform them. To be honest, DIM did the correct thing. They found out that this had been missed and the addressed it. If there had been an accident, or you harmed someone else, they'd be quite rightly be in court for it. So it is never too late to get things done properly.