Many comparisons can be made between employment law and the fashion industry - even leaving aside the glamour of its practitioners. Both can be cruel mistresses, blown in the winds of opinion; each is subject to changes that can appear at best fickle (and are often imported from the continent).

There is also the question of the seasons. Just as it proves impossible to buy swimwear in summer (when fur lines the rails), so the fashion for introducing acts and regulations continues to defy its season. And it was in this context that the Agency Workers Regulations 2010 hit the shelves on 1 October, ­perplexing a generation of employers. But, of course, the confusion only starts there.

Never the easiest area of employment law (have you read the Dacas decision recently?), the regulations have upped the game by seeking to give enhanced rights to those ‘agency workers’ supplied by TWAs (temporary work agencies) to ‘hirers’.

These rights include access to the same collective facilities/amenities as comparators (from day one), and, most significantly, the right to equal treatment in basic working and employment conditions (though only after a 12-week qualifying period). Driven by the European Temporary Agency Workers Directive (2008/104/EC), the regulations have been on the horizon since 2008 - yet to some commentators their timing could not have been worse.

In this economic climate, many companies are under significant pressure to reduce permanent headcount and adopt a more flexible approach to staffing. For these companies (and those that wish to operate as agency workers) the ability to operate as a ‘hirer’ provides numerous advantages, which the regulations potentially erode. Few are likely to have sensible objections to offering equality in access to collective facilities (such as childcare, canteen facilities and so on) and, it is hoped, already do so. The real issue will be that of pay and rations, and a law that has the potential to price agency workers out of the market. That is, of course, if the employer can really be confident that the worker is not in fact an employee (which, following the decision in Autoclenz v Belcher [2011] IRLR 82, merits thought).

Under the regulations, the worker is entitled to the same ‘basic working and employment conditions’ (for example, pay) as if they had been directly recruited by the employer. To qualify, they must have been engaged on an assignment for 12 calendar weeks (where part of a week counts as a whole one). There may appear no immediate objection to this. After all, a major argument in favour of allowing such arrangements should be flexibility rather than cost. The difficulty concerns the question of who will bear any increase in cost by that time, as the employer will not wish to incur the agency costs on top of ‘full price’. Equally, the agency may not be able to afford to pay the difference from its then fee.

It is unattractive to argue that such laws will be a disincentive to employing any particular ‘disadvantaged’ group – and so I will leave that to your own view. However, what is bound to happen is that agency workers will be bounced around. Given that the easiest way of avoiding this aspect of the regulations is to ‘sack’ the agency worker before the 12 weeks is up, we must ask if we are entering the age of disposability.

Good temporary workers who would otherwise have been offered continued extensions to their assignments are necessarily seen as transient, with replacements being demanded, regardless of their skill, prior to the 12-week boundary being reached. The position is not improved by the anti-avoidance provisions (for example, the ban on structuring assignments to deliberately break the 12-week period by, for example, artificially moving people back and forth between group companies), and the need to have a break in assignments of at least six weeks if the cycle is to be restarted.

Already, TWAs around the country are working hard to adjust their terms and conditions to try and put themselves outside the regulations, for example, by becoming a traditional recruitment agent. Alternatively, they are working hard to make best use of the Swedish Derogation (Regulation 10) which, for the uninformed, relates to an agreement between the worker and TWA for payment (50% of pay in the relevant reference period) in between assignments, to detract from the right to receive equal treatment on pay.

Yet while the agency workers’ regulations are a new style, the employment world has hinted that a few old ones may return in the next ‘season’. Continuous employment may be worn longer before unfair dismissal rights are acquired, something we have not seen for some time – and at two years this should be a hit with the modern employer.

Lord Davies has also revealed his design for better representation of women in boardrooms, having announced that targets should be set for FTSE 100 companies to aim for a minimum representation of 25% women on boards by 2015. Although opinion is divided on the return of the ‘quota’ approach to such issues (something we have not seen for years), most seem to agree that the present system has not enjoyed universal success. While it is sad that after 40 years of legislation such an approach is still needed, the fact is it does appear necessary, if only to keep the issue of under-representation live. Let us hope it catches on this time.

Fashion, though, comes at a price - and for the claimant lobby this seems to be the advent of issue fees for tribunal claims (suggested at £250) with a further fee on a listing (about £1,000). To balance this, there is even a suggested fine for employers who lose (payable to the Treasury, of course). How far we are from the concept of cheap, simple justice for the ordinary person that the parents of the tribunals foresaw. While it will look good on some, I suspect that, like leggings, it won’t fit well for all, and we have yet to hear of the future for the £500 unlawful deductions claim; a claim which for those raising them may be for an important sum of money, though at a cost to the public purse. Tricky one.

Few would argue that the system works perfectly and there are abuses. Rather than seeking new styles, though, many employment lawyers if asked would recommend a look through the ‘closet’ to see if there are any forgotten items that could be used instead to deal with such problems.

For example, the last time I looked, regulation 27(5) of the 2004 regulations still allowed the tribunal to ‘dismiss or dispose of [the proceedings]’ in the face of a party who fails to attend - yet how often do we hear of this happening in real life? How many stories abound of the ‘missing’ claimant who arrives at 4pm, only to be given an adjournment, effectively cost-managing an employer out of defending the claim at a second hearing. New styles are all very well but a good look may reveal many such gems waiting to hit the tribunal corridors - if only they were used.

For many of us, these things come and go. Two years, six months and one year’s continuous service have been raised during my career alone. With the abolition of the default retirement age and the state of pensions, I am sure many of us will be lucky enough to see them all come around again - at least once!

Darren Clayton, Doyle Clayton, London