Going Swedish Is Not Necessarily The Answer!

The long awaited Agency Workers Regulations (AWR) came into force on the 1 October, and are designed to create equal treatment in regard to pay and working conditions between agency workers and the hirer's permanent employees who work in comparable roles.

As ever the commercial parties affected (the end user/hirer and the temporary work agencies) have been examining the regulations to see how they can best 'manage' (or avoid – call me cynical if you wish!) with the inevitable 'rights creep' this will introduce.

Given the tight anti-avoidance provisions contained in the AWR the potential ways to restrict these new rights are limited. Indeed, despite the UK government stating they wished to end the 'gold plating' of European legislation, the AWR only provides for one of the two potential derogations available under the European Directive, but perhaps that is a different point! The Swedish derogation is so named due to the Swedish government's insistence on its