No rights to claim unfair dismissal or redundancy




Agency workers are not employees of the end user or hirer, so they have no right to claim unfair dismissal or redundancy pay from the hirer when the relationship ends (James v London Borough of Greenwich [2008] EWCA Civ 35). It makes no difference that the agency worker is assimilated into the hirer’s organisation, works under its direction and control, or is treated in all other respects just like the hirer’s directly employed workers (Tilson v Alstom Transport [2011] IRLR 169, Smith v Carillion (JM) Limited [2015] EWCA Civ 209). 




A court will only imply a contract of employment between the agency worker and the hirer where this is necessary to give effect to what the parties intended to agree. This will be rare. An employment contract will not be implied if the evidence demonstrates a standard three-way agency relationship. The only time such a contract is likely to be implied is where the documents do not reflect the parties’ true agreement. For example:


Some agency workers are directly employed by the employment agency or business. They have all the normal statutory rights of employees against the employment agency as their employer.