This case raises the question whether an agency worker’s right to equal terms relating to ‘the duration of working time’, as compared with directly employed workers, means that they are entitled to be allocated an equivalent number of weekly hours of work. The Appellant agency worker argued that he was entitled to be offered a 39 hour week on the basis that this was the standard working week for full time directly employed workers at Royal Mail.
Held: Appeal dismissed. The Agency Worker Regulations do not entitle agency workers to work the same number of contractual hours as a directly employed comparator. The purpose of the legislation is plainly to ensure equal treatment of agency workers and permanent employees while at work, and in respect of rights arising from their work; but there is nothing in either the preamble or the Articles of the Agency Workers Directive, or in the Regulations, to suggest that they are intended to regulate the amount of work which agency workers are entitled to be given.
Thomas Linden QC was involved in this case.