Indenture

[Aussie]

The labour hire gig I have at present....no names, no pack drill..... has, sort of, offered me a permanent placement.  What's freaking them out is the labour hire agency buyout.  The previous guy to come on board in this way left too soon to warrant, in their minds, the several thou it cost.  To grease the skids....I really need this gig, guys....I've offered to sign a contractual arrangement stipulating that I'll stay for X number of years if they buy out the agency.  Any advice on wording would be cool and greatly appreciated.  (I'm sure someone will do the 'run, don't look back' deal, but I got bills and children who need clothes, as Billy Joel sang.)

[Origisaurus]

Wonder why your predecessor bailed?  Was it something to do with the employer?

Here's one possibility - I may think of others later:

Employer pays buyout monthly for, say, a year.  If you quit, payments stop.  If they terminate you for any reason, they owe the balance of the buyout.

BTW, until they have settled with the agency, any offer is no better than "sorta". Sailboat fuel.

[Richardk]

If the previous guy was through the same agency then your company has some traction.

Most agencies will strike a deal to keep a client or to at least make them happy. If they don't offer a deal then your company needs to ask for one.

They could say, 'we're interested in 1Aussie1 but we paid full price for your last guy and he left, so we're hesitant to repeat that. Can you help us out here?'

You need an HR person with some balls to do this since the agency will detect the game if it's not sincere. I suspect the long term relationship with your "employer" is worth more to them than the few thousand they may lose in discounting your buyout.

I would hold out on signing any contracts with your 'new employer' until they try to work out a deal with your agency. If you have a good relationship with your agency (that's a big if) you could put a 'bird in their ear' suggesting that you overheard their client complaining about the high buyout fees. Most agencies are smart enough to know that it's cheaper and easier to make an existing client happy than to find a new client.

Put FUD to work and you should see results.

[The Gorn]

Aussie:  
    I've offered to sign a contractual arrangement stipulating that I'll stay for X number of years if they buy out the agency. Any advice on wording   would be cool and greatly appreciated.

I feel for you, I really do, but there are two problems with our offering any advice to you:

1) I have no idea what amount of leverage that you have in this situation and how hard another "you" is to find.

2) Nobody here on this board knows the first thing about Australian or state/provincial labor law there. In the US, labor law constrains the scope of things like non compete agreements and employment contracts.

I'll tell you what I always tell anyone fishing for particular legal or situational advice: find an attorney who deals with this sort of thing. Especially in this instance, where it's outside the domain of IT and it's outside the US.

If you aren't paranoid about disclosing more just to continue the discussion, I can move this thread to the private section. I've never heard of anyone being ratted out there and I have used it for some confidential situations myself.

Just offhand - taking the risk of paying a buyout is your client's problem, not yours, and I would never sign an agreement that makes me a slave to an employer. That's what contracting is for, anyway.

[Origisaurus]

You could agree to make payments to the agency, conditioned on your not being fired.  This would be an illegal kickback in most US states.  But last I looked, Oz is not one of them.

Even more interesting is the indenture idea.  You could condition it on having the same or higher pay and "suitable" work - no cleaning latrines, etc.  Of course it most likely means nothing, but it gives you a chance to make the employer feel obligated.  

[Aussie]

Transferring this to the private section might be a good idea.

For instance, there's talk of moving the warehouse, though not particularly far.  One bullet point would be to put it in writing that the agreement is for the current location and the hypothetical other location, but not for a move to the "Wrong-Side-of-the-Darling"(-River).

I had an agreement like this 20+ years ago that ran over two years.  It was due to company/govt sponsored training.   As it turned out, I stayed with the company for 5 years.

While I'm not a legal type, I would think that a 6 month New South Welsh non-compete means exactly what it says.  As in, "Thou shalt not".

There is no HR at this place.  The non-warehouse 'suits' upstairs consist of the owner, several salesman, and a secretary.  Big warehouse, small staff numbers.

The previous guy (I worked with him for a while, country boy, good bloke) left because of the long, long commute from across the Greater Sydney region.  No issues that I was aware of.  I live not far from this warehouse, so this is not an issue for me.

I've suggested to the warehouse manager that they should speak to the agency, see if they can get a deal.  After all, there has been a GFC.

It also occurred to me just now that maybe the up-front willingness to sign a bit of paper might be sufficiently reassuring to obviate the need for it.

[Origisaurus]

Since the boss is the also the HR guy and maybe unsophisticated wrt using contractors, you may want to consider "coaching" him about the ins and outs of buyouts, etc.

Most agencies would rather lose a body than a client.  In Detroit, this happens all the time:  Purchasing agent phones borque - "Say, Sam, we want to roll over your guy, Joe.  You still have 20 people here.  That's OK, isn't it?"

+ +

Labor contractors have been around for a long time.  The pyramids were built with contract labor - the Hebrews offered their services, but later wanted out - see Exodus, etc.  The US railroads were built with contract labor, likewise minerals mined and lumber harvested.

[Aussie]

But now we're in the Private section....

Their initial offer of a job was along the lines of .... they wanted to do it on the sly and cut the agency out of it, buyout-wise.  Told em no.  Three reasons.  One, ain't ethical.  Two, Sydney ain't that big re agencies, and they all talk to one another.....you'd get blacklisted.  Three, it'd be pretty obvious to the agency what had happened, and you'd get sued....let's face it, if they let one person/client get away with it, then all the people/clients will do it to you, and your agency'd be out of work inside of six months, twelve tops.  But tact dictated that I only gave em Reasons 2 and 3.  Manager (not the owner) said, leave it for now, don't say anything about it, we'll see what we can do.    Told the agency about the offer, but not about their attempted end-run around the buy-out.  The agency was supposed to ring them and 'fortuitously stumble over' the subject of permanent buyout on Friday and then ring me.  Haven't hear from them yet.  Wondering now if they denied wanting to buy me out?  Also wondering whether in that case, or in any case, I should mention to the agency the fact that the company tried to squeeze them out of their buyout fee?    I got a big bill pending in February, and a bunch of medium expenses before then.  Gotta be working right through to February if I have a hope of meeting that February bill.  Don't much mind if the labour hire thing continues after Christmas/New Year or whether it's perm, but I gotta get the work.  Ironically, just before this issue broke two Fridays ago, the agency mailed me an 'attaboy' certificate "in recognition of your outstanding performance and high standard of work which was praised by our client".

After this buyout impasse, re-reading that certificate has kinda depressed me.

[The Gorn]

Normally I am "against" agencies, but a contract is a contract and a deal is a deal. I agree with your analysis completely.

[Origisaurus]

I wonder about telling the agency about the not-so-definite "offer".  Could work for you, or not.

I get the FUD.  And I think the client will keep you on in January, one status or the other.

if they let one person/client get away with it, then all the people/clients will do it to you

Mario, the bookie: If I let one guy slide, word will get around, and I won't be able to borrow money or even lay off my book.  I'd be out of business.  So I send my cousin Carmine to "reason" with people owing me money.

[Richardk]

You can talk to both, when asked but don't be their messenger boy. This is for them to work out, not for you to play mediator.

Also don't rat out the client to the agency. They might simply deny it and you'll look like a trouble maker to both. To the client - they can't trust you and to the agency - you're making stuff up that could hurt their relationship with the client. In the end, you lose.

We also know the client is cheap. Do you know what rate they're paying for you? If they offer you a job on the sly, they save not only the buyout fee but also the agency's take for each hour you work. So their savings are significant. Since they probably don't know what you're being paid, did they discuss a rate or make a solid offer? How does it compare?

This could work for you or against you and like you said, don't under estimate the agency's ability to blacklist you. It's a small world and they really do talk to each other.

[Richardk]

[Aussie]

Absolutely no damm mention has been made of it again since.  I've been working there every day, which demonstrates the need for the position to be filled.  So I've had the pay coming in, which means that February's big bills look like they'll get paid OK, touch wood....just, and it was a close-run thing too, I'll tell you.....but as to what happens long-term, I just don't know.  One can only wonder whether it was less a thing of being burnt by the subject of a previous buy-out fee, or more one of wanting to just not have to pay it at all if one could get away with it.  Because I so desperately needed the cash, I haven't pushed the subject at all since about a month ago.  Neither to the company nor to the agency. I figured, I needed the money at least up until mid-Feb, and I didn't want to rock the boat in any way. And, with their weekly margin coming in regularly, the agency hasn't spoken to me since then either.

I'm wondering whether the head sherang of the whole place finds justifying ongoing weekly margin payments to labour-hire agencies easier than a lump-sum buy-out fee.  Well, other than paid holidays and sick leave, I guess there wouldn't be a whole lotta difference between the pay I get now and the pay I'd get as a perm on the award, so, so long as the work keeps up, I guess this whole perm thing is a hurry-up-and-wait deal at the moment.

Oh, BTW, the head guy upstairs (not the warehouse mgr) normally had 4 sales reps with him.  One left weeks ago, another two left at the end of last week.  Must be getting lonely up there in the airconditioned office.

[Richardk]

Hard to say what they are thinking. Maybe they wanted to know if you would consider it but they weren’t ready to commit? If it’s about the same money, I’d keep going to work and not bring it up.

I’d be more concerned about the sales reps leaving and how that impacts your job.

[Origisaurus]

I’d be more concerned about the sales reps leaving and how that impacts your job.

And about the current profitability and cash flow.  Macro-econ says that more tires will be bought in the aftermarket because of people holding on to the old buggy but needing new tires.