will either introduce an Act of Parliament or create a statutory instrument under the European Communities Act 1972 which puts the directive's required rules in place. In fact, the proposed 2008 Bill was based on the directive, and serves as a very good guide indeed as to what any implementation will look like. All the essentials are identical. The core of the new law is to oblige employers to treat agency workers and permanent staff equally in their contract terms, but only regarding Hours and holiday time Pay, including sick pay Time off for parenting (for women only) Discrimination law (though this is unnecessary because agency workers are already explicitly covered in existing laws) The bill does not protect agency workers from being fired at the will of the employer. The courts are of two minds about whether agency workers should be considered "employees" (under s 230 ERA) and importantly whom they should be considered "employees" of. Confusion in the courts has encouraged more claims, and has prevented the enforcement of clear rights. Agency workers have almost none of the main entitlements under the Employment Rights Act 1996. None of this is covered in the directive. That means agency workers may potentially be left without the following rights. Right to reasonable notice before dismissal (s 86 ERA) Right to written statement of contract (s 1 ERA, these two rights form the bedrock of individual labour law, since they were the first national minimum standards to be introduced in the Contracts of Employment Act 1963) Right to request flexible working time (s 80F) Right to parental and paternity leave (in Part VIII) Right to redundancy payments (s 135) Compensation from the government for lost earnings when an employer goes insolvent (s 182) In cl 4(1) the Bill created a right to have access to an Employment Tribunal under s 111 ERA 1996. This gives any person the right to bring an unfair dismissal claim against an "employer", and the bill expressly provided in cl 4(2) that for this purpose both the agency and the end-user are employers. However, in an action for unfair dismissal, the claimant would need to show that an employer had (unsurprisingly) in some way acted "unfairly" (s 98 ERA 1996). The way people demonstrate "unfairness" is to show that some pre-existing right has been breached. If an agency worker is not considered an "employee", then he will