Yearly Archives: 2017

Two of the hottest topics in employment law recently have been worker status and holiday pay. There have been cases on whether Uber drivers, and others working in the “gig economy”, should be treated as workers rather than self-employed contractors, and therefore be entitled to benefits including holiday pay.  And there has also been a series of cases about how holiday pay should be calculated, and that it should include elements such as commission as well as basic salary.  These two topics have come together in an important decision from the European Court of Justice.  Mr King worked for The Sash Window Workshop and was engaged (by his own choice) as a self-employed contractor.  As such he did not get paid holiday.  However, after he left the company, he brought a claim in respect of holiday pay that he says he should have received.  The UK Employment Tribunal held that Mr King was in fact a worker rather than self-employed.  Therefore he should have been entitled to paid holiday.  Normally, employees have to take holiday in the relevant holiday year, or lose it, so a claim would be limited.  But in this case, the ECJ held that Mr King should be entitled to claim backdated holiday pay not just for the previous holiday year, but stretching right back to when he started working for the company.  This meant that the liability added up to a very considerable sum. The case will now be sent back to the UK Court of Appeal, but it is likely that it will follow this decision from the ECJ.  Companies that use a lot of self-employed contractors need to be aware that this status is being subject to scrutiny more and more often.  The potential bill for making the wrong decision on worker status is set to become a lot more expensive.  

At a Preliminary Hearing in April 2018 the Employment Tribunal will determine whether Jess Varnish, former GB Olympian, is an employee of UK Sport & British Cycling, and therefore entitled to bring claims of sex discrimination, detriment for whistleblowing, victimisation and unfair dismissal.This is a further example of where employee status is being challenged in the tribunal, with potentially huge ramifications.

The charity Maternity Action has just published a report on pregnant women and new mothers being at increased risk of redundancy.  The report quotes statistics that show that 77% of pregnant women and new mothers surveyed in 2016 complained of suffering discrimination.  This compared to 45% in a similar study from 2005.  So the problem seems to be getting worse, not better.Of course, it is already unlawful to make a woman redundant for reasons connected to maternity.  But legal claims can be difficult to pursue, so the report makes some recommendations of what more could be done to protect women.  Currently, employers must put women on maternity leave who are at risk of redundancy to the front of the queue for any suitable vacancies, without having to compete with other colleagues at risk (Regulation 10, Maternity and Parental Leave regulations 1999).  But this only applies during maternity leave.  Women who are pregnant, and those who have recently returned from maternity leave, do not get this advantage.  This is despite the fact that the statistics quoted in the report show that they are also very vulnerable to being made redundant.  The report suggest that, as an interim measure, Reg 10 protection could be extended to pregnant women and to those who have returned from maternity leave in the past 6 months.   However, the report concludes that this would be insufficient to tackle the problem.  It recommends the German model, where it is unlawful for employer to make women redundant at all while they are pregnant, on maternity leave, or have just returned to work.  There are only limited exceptions to this, such as where the business is closing.  It seems unlikely that the Government is going to opt for this German model.  But if the statistics around maternity discrimination keep getting worse, then the pressure to take action might becoming overwhelming.  In that case, extending Reg 10 protection would seem like a logical first step. A link to the full report: https://www.maternityaction.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/RedundancyReportFinal.compressed.pdf