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07 June 2007 / David Malamatenios
Issue: 7276 / Categories: Features , Employment
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Agents of change

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Recent EAT decisions have accelerated changes to the legal status of agency workers, says David Malamatenios

You might be excused for having a feeling of déjà vu when first reading this article, because this is the latest in a series of articles which attempt to make sense of the employment status of agency workers. In that case, you might fairly ask, what is the point of this article? Well, the situation has at last started to become clearer (for employers at least) as a consequence of two recent decisions of the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) in Astbury v Gist [2007] All ER (D) 480 (Mar) and Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospitals NHS Trust v Kulubowila [2007] All ER (D) 496 (Mar), both of which were published on 28 March 2007.

AGENCY WORKERS

There is no point telling you what’s new without first telling you what’s old and how the law has come to be so confused on this issue.
The problem of agency workers is an old one. An agency worker works under a tri-partite

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