I know that agency contractors have the same unfair dismissal rights against the contractor’s end user as the end user’s employees do; given this, where an end user wants to terminate a contractor’s assignment with it due to performance issues, what, if any, involvement should the end user have in how the agency deals with the contractor (e.g. whether the contractor is redeployed, if and how they are disciplined due to the performance issues, if and how their employment with the agency is terminated)?

It is assumed for the purposes of answering this question that an “agency contractor” refers to an “agency worker”, as defined in the Protection of Employees (Temporary Agency Work) Act 2012.

Section 13 of the Unfair Dismissals (Amendment) Act, 1993 provides that agency workers can seek redress for unfair dismissals from the business in which they are placed by an employment agency (i.e. from the “end-user”).

Termination of the agency worker’s assignment to the end user will not necessarily be a dismissal, as the employing entity will be the employment agency and the agency worker may be reassigned to a different business by the employment agency. Where no dismissal occurs, the Unfair