• Agency workers receive limited rights.business colleagues image by Vladimir Melnik from Fotolia.com
  
  Agency, or temp, workers comprise a large population across the world. Given their temporary status, they traditionally don't receive the same benefits as do permanent workers. However, rights exist that avail certain benefits to these workers, which differ by the year and from country to country.
  
  

Britain

• The Workers' Liberty organization reported in February 2010 that the roughly 1.8 million temp workers in the nation will receive extended rights in 2011. The Agency Workers Directive (AWD) mandates that agency workers have the right to receive pay equal to what permanent employees receive, as well as vacation time, child care services, transport and on-site facilities offered to permanent staff.
  
  Demonstration of improvements coming from these extended rights can especially be seen in wages and vacation time. For example, officer workers should witness a 2-pound per hour increase in pay, while also going from receiving little or no vacation to the amount permanent workers receive.
  
  

United States

• In the U.S., the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act (MSPA) protects migrant and temporary agricultural workers. According to the act, workers receive wage protection as well as quality living and transportation standards in the case of farm workers.
  
  Further, the Equal Rights Advocates (ERA) organization strives to protect the rights of temporary workers. This includes protection against discrimination coming from the agency or the employing company, and encompasses race, sex, religion, color, national origin, age and disability.
  
  The U.S. definition of a temporary worker comprises those employed through a temporary agency or involved in a welfare-to-work program.
  
  

France

• A strong feature of agency worker rights in France gives these employees educational opportunities. For instance, the national federation of work and trade unions vouched for vocational training in the early 1980s, and by the 1990s employees from temporary agencies comprised roughly 2 percent of those receiving employee-sponsored vocational training in France.
  
  Additionally, French agency workers may receive supplemental wages which compensate for the "precarious nature" of temporary work, as well as their limited opportunities for acquiring vacation time, which is allotted on a month-to-month basis.
  
  French rights also help agency workers acquire loans or rent apartments through funds set aside by temp agencies. Without these funds, temp workers have found bankers reluctant to loan money to them, due to the unstable nature of their work.