Charles Pigott predicts more uncertainty for agency workers
In order to be protected by the employment-related discrimination legislation, it is normally necessary to be in a contractual relationship with the proposed respondent. The conventional view has been that the contract worker provisions that are present in all the major anti-discrimination legislation create an exception from this rule for agency workers. Contract work is defined (for example in s 7(1) Race Relations Act 1976 (RRA 1976)) as: “any work for a person (the principal) which is available for doing by individuals (contract workers) who are not employed by the principal himself but by another person, who supplies them under a contract made with the principal.”
Where agency workers are involved, the principal will be the person to whom their labour is supplied and the employment agency will be the “other person” who supplies them. The contract worker provisions then go on to provide for a principal to be liable for acts of discrimination against contract workers, in much the same way as if it had entered into a direct contractual relationship with them.
In most cases
